


Unseen Hero

by JCapasso



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Chloe bashing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 44,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: In which Chloe doesn't spill the wine, Trixie learns what she's about to do, people aren't idiots, and Dan is almost too late to fix it.This story contains Chloe bashing.
Relationships: Dan Espinoza/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 265
Kudos: 518





	1. Chapter 1

“Daddy, I need your help?” Trixie whispered in the phone. 

“Trix? What’s wrong baby? Where are you? Are you in danger?” Dan asked fearfully, already heading for the door. 

“I’m fine, but you have to save Lucifer, Daddy, please,” Trixie whispered. 

“If you’re fine, why are you whispering?” Dan asked worriedly. 

“Because I don’t want the babysitter to hear me. I’m not supposed to have my phone,” she told him. 

Dan let out a breath of relief that his daughter wasn’t in any danger before thinking about what she actually said. “Your mom is with Lucifer, baby. He’s fine.”

“No, he’s not,” Trixie said with a sniffle. “Please please please believe me. Mommy’s trying to hurt him. To send him back to Hell. She’s gonna put something in his drink.”

“Why would she do that?” Dan asked confused. 

“Because she thinks he’s bad,” Trixie told him. “I heard her talking to a priest man about it. That’s why she took my phone away. So I couldn’t warn him. I tried to call him, but he’s not answering. Please, Daddy.” 

Dan could hear the desperation in her voice and knew that she wasn’t making this up, but wasn’t entirely sure that she hadn’t misunderstood. Chloe would never do that. She knew Lucifer. He knew that barging in on their date wasn’t likely to end well either way, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he did kinda want to, and he could always use this call as an excuse. “Okay, baby. I’ll go over and check on things if it will make you feel better.”

“Thank you Daddy,” Trixie whispered in relief. 

“You’re welcome. Now go put your phone back before you get in trouble.” 

“Love you, Daddy.”

“Love you too Trix,” Dan said hanging up the phone, before deciding what to do. He would try to avoid throwing Trixie under the bus if he could. Just say he got a random call about danger if it did turn up that he was interfering in their date. If it was true though…he doubted that Lucifer had any kind of first aid kit at his house, so Dan grabbed a bottle of ipecac and the charcoal tablets. She had mentioned putting it in his drink so obviously it was an ingested poison so one or both of those would help. 

He got in the car and drove as fast as he reasonably could towards Lux, figuring that’s where they would be if Chloe actually was planning to poison him. She wouldn’t do it in public, obviously, and Trix was calling from home with a sitter, so the penthouse was the best option. Of course there were other options. Secluded picnic spots and such, but he wouldn’t even know where to begin looking if that was the case. 

Dan saw Chloe’s car there and unconsciously started to put more stock in Trixie’s crazy story when he saw that. Chloe was not the type to jump into bed with someone on the first date, after all. He was more than a little jittery as the elevator was going up and he was speaking as soon as the doors opened. “Lucifer don’t drink…” he paused as he saw Lucifer was already drinking it. “The wine, he finished uselessly with a sigh.

“Dan! What are you doing here?” Chloe asked in a near panic. 

Dan was trying to avoid answering the question at least for a minute. To see if Lucifer had a reaction to anything. When he saw Lucifer’s look of confusion and annoyance morph into a look of pain and betrayal as he doubled over, he ran forward to help him. “Trying to stop this,” Dan snapped at Chloe, pulling out the ipecac out of his pocket. “Drink this,” he told Lucifer. 

“Like I’m…going to…trust you,” Lucifer panted through the pain. 

“I couldn’t exactly make it any worse, could I?” Dan told him, trying to ignore the hurt he felt at that comment, but he couldn’t exactly blame Lucifer for that. He had been kind of an ass to him recently. 

“Dan you don’t understand…” Chloe tried to explain, getting up and backing away. 

“That he’s the devil? Of course I do. That doesn’t mean he deserves to die,” Dan snapped at her. “Please, Lucifer. I promise I’m just trying to help you.” 

The knowledge that Dan somehow knew what he was and his vociferous defense, combined with the fact that Dan was right, it couldn’t exactly get any worse, had him taking the small bottle from Dan’s hand and turning it up. When he felt the bile rising in his throat and suddenly started wretching all over the floor, he thought that his first instinct had been right. They were both trying to poison him. But then why was Dan sitting there rubbing his back through it? Once it was over, he sat up, moving as far as he could from the mess and he couldn’t deny that he felt better. 

“How do you feel?” Dan asked concerned, unsure if the charcoal would be needed still without knowing what it was he was given. Truthfully, he shouldn’t have induced vomiting without knowing that anyway, but there weren’t exactly a lot of options in the current situation. He doubted even Chloe knew exactly what poison she’d given him. 

“Better,” Lucifer admitted, doubling over in another wash of pain. “But not great.”

“Here. Take a few of these. It should soak up anything left in your stomach,” Dan told him, handing over the charcoal tablets. Once Lucifer did that and he was sure that he’d done everything he could, Dan rounded on Chloe. “Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t call the station and have you arrested for attempted murder.” 

“He’s the devil, Dan,” Chloe said fearfully. “He’s going to destroy us all if we don’t send him back to Hell.”

“/That/ is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” Dan yelled. “So what if he’s the devil? That doesn’t change who he is! He wouldn’t destroy anyone. Except maybe murderers of course, but still…”

“You know?” Lucifer asked feebly from the floor. The pain was mostly gone now, but he was still feeling rather weak. 

“Of course, I know. You’ve never exactly been subtle about it,” Dan said with a roll of his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half the precinct has figured it out.” 

“But…” Lucifer said in confusion only to be cut off by Chloe. 

“Then how can you stand here and defend him,” Chloe asked desperately. “He’s evil.”

“Bullshit,” Dan scoffed. “When have you ever seen him do anything even resembling evil?”

“Every story of good and evil…”

“Stories, Chlo!” Dan snapped. “History is written by the victors remember? I’ve read most of those stories too and they don’t even read like anything reasonable. It’s obvious that they’re just fairy tales looking for a scapegoat.” 

“Please don’t mention goats,” Lucifer groaned. 

“I really don’t want to do this Chloe,” Dan said with a sigh as he pulled his phone from his pocket and sent a text to get some people here. “But given that Trixie is terrified right now, I can’t just let this go.” His daughter had put her trust in him. For the first time in a long time, she had reached out to him for help. He wasn’t going to let her down. He wasn’t going to let Chloe go home like nothing happened. “I’ll try to get you a psych referral instead of jail time, but I can’t let you go home to her after this. Not when you don’t even show any remorse.” The fact that Chloe had taken her phone away because she had overheard something made him more than a little uncomfortable. The fact that his ex-wife was going to commit murder and his daughter knew that backed him into a corner here. 

“Linda,” Lucifer said. “Get her a referral to Linda. I’ll make sure it goes through,” Lucifer said weakly. He didn’t want her punished too harshly for this. He cared about her too much for that. 

Dan nodded. “Okay. We’ll do that then. But in the meantime, you’ll have to go to jail.” 

“No,” Chloe shook her head in denial. “I kept quiet when you gave Malcom that gun. When you shot him at Palmetto.” 

“I know,” Dan said. “But this is an entirely different situation. Trixie is involved and terrified. She knows what you were planning to do here and if you go home now what do you think she’s gonna do? At best she gets the message that you can get away with murder without any consequences, and that’s the best case scenario.”

Chloe sighed. She could see his point. But still… “I was trying to save the world!” 

“From the person helping to protect it?!” Dan yelled. “How many times has he said that he’s not evil, he just punishes evil?” 

“Lies…”

“I do NOT lie, detective,” Lucifer managed to snap from the floor. He’d just been watching this play out and trying to make sense of it all, but he wasn’t going to sit here and be called a liar. Evil was one thing. Liar was completely different.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe was so off-guard right now that she had no idea what to do. Everything Dan was saying made sense, but so did everything Father Kinley said. The idea that other people knew he was the devil and were fine with it had her completely freaked out and she didn’t know which way was up now. Lucifer and Dan had both said that they would make sure that she didn’t get any jail time if she stuck this out, but could she trust them? Would running be better? She was so frozen by indecision that the decision was taken out of her hands by the arrival of the on call detectives and Ella with her kit. “What’s going on?” Ella asked Chloe, assuming that they were here because Dan did something to Lucifer. 

“I…I…” Chloe stammered. 

“Chloe decided to poison Lucifer to send him back to hell,” Dan answered when it was clear that Chloe wasn’t.

“Wait, what?!” Ella asked in shock before the detectives redirected her to processing the scene. 

“Getting the statements is our job Lopez,” Davis told her with a roll of his eyes. 

“Right. Sorry,” Ella said rushing over to the table. “Do we need an ambulance?” she asked worriedly at the sight of Lucifer. 

“No, Ms Lopez. I’ll be fine. The poison is out of my system now and I’ll be right as rain after a little rest,” Lucifer told her. 

Davis sighed and put the handcuffs on Chloe. “But he’s the devil!” Chloe managed to say. 

“No kidding,” the other detective Parson said with a roll of his eyes. “It’s not like he’s ever tried to hide it.”

“You know too?” Lucifer asked incredulously. 

“Oh Lucifer,” Ella said with an amused shake of her head. “Almost everybody knows.”

“But…no one ever believes me,” he said gob-smacked. 

“And no one did at first,” Davis pointed out. “But when you flaunt your abilities as much as you do, it makes it pretty obvious eventually.” 

“If we’re done stating the obvious, can we get on with this?” Parsons asked impatiently. “Some of us would like to go home sometime tonight.”

Once everyone gave their statements, save Chloe who was just stuck on the ‘but he’s the devil’ loop, the detectives were heading out with her, but Dan stopped them. “Make sure she’s okay for tonight. We’re setting up a psych eval with a shrink in the know tomorrow.” 

Davis and Parsons nodded but Ella smiled sadly. “That’s very nice of you guys,” she said, knowing that Dan may have been the one to say it, but Lucifer had just as much of a hand in it too if not more. 

“It’s not exactly right for her to be punished for reacting like most reasonable people would,” Lucifer pointed out, getting a glare from both Ella and Dan. 

“You are so lucky you’re not up to snuff right now, mister or I would punch you for that,” Ella said irritated. 

“A reasonable person who had never met you, /maybe/, but she has no excuse,” Dan told him. 

“Listen, I really need to get back and process all this,” Ella said regretfully, worried about leaving Lucifer alone right now. She had the wine samples from both glasses and the bottle, samples of the food and even the vomit, so she had a lot of work to do. 

“I’ll stick around,” Dan told her with a nod. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Lucifer argued, finally trying to pick himself up off the floor as Ella rolled her eyes and headed for the elevator. 

Dan chuckled and went to help him up. “And I have no intention of babying you, so we’re good. You really should go get some rest though.” 

“Like I’m going to be able to sleep at a time like this?” Lucifer scoffed, trying to stagger over to the couch. 

“Fine. Then at least sit and relax,” Dan said as he steadied him in that direction. 

“You have your offspring to worry about, do you not?” Lucifer pointed out. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to get him out of here so he could lick his wounds in private or keep him here to answer the thousands of questions that all this had brought up that had him completely baffled. 

“I can have the babysitter bring her by here, if you don’t mind her sleeping here tonight. She’ll want to see for herself that you’re okay though,” Dan told him as he grabbed a rag to start cleaning up the mess. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Lucifer said getting up to do it himself. 

“Dude, sit down. I have a kid. This isn’t the first puke I’ve cleaned up and probably won’t be the last,” Dan said pushing him back onto the couch and the fact that it was so easy meant that it was the right thing to do. 

Lucifer sighed and nodded. “Very well. Your spawn can sleep in the spare room. You may wish to ensure that there is nothing inappropriate in there first, however.”

“I’ll do that in a few minutes then,” Dan told him. 

“How is it that everyone seems to know who I am and yet no one has confronted me about it. Even to ask any of the questions I’m sure you all have,” Lucifer asked. 

“Well I can’t speak for everyone else. It’s not exactly something we sit around gossiping about. For my part though, I don’t want to bring back any traumatic memories. I mean…it’s Hell. You don’t just go around asking people ‘hey what was it like to be kidnapped and beaten’ or anything and I’m sure Hell is a lot worse.”

“Why do you even care? You hate me,” Lucifer said, still just as confused. 

“Why would you think I hate you?” Dan asked curiously. 

“You act like you do. Especially lately,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“I was bitter,” Dan told him. “Still am really, but that’s not the same thing.”

“Why?” 

“Because you kept the information about Pierce to yourself and as a result Charlotte died,” Dan said bluntly. 

“I tried to tell the detective, but she didn’t believe me.”

“And you just let it go at that,” Dan said in irritation. “You didn’t even try to tell anyone else. You had to have known that she wouldn’t believe you. She never believes you about anything.”

“I didn’t think /anyone/ believed me,” Lucifer said pointedly. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who involved dear Charlotte. I was as surprised as anyone at that.” 

Dan sighed. He couldn’t exactly argue with that. Lucifer did have a point. If he had made it more clear that he knew, maybe it would have been different. “How did she get involved then? Did she just figure it out on her own?”

“I learned recently that Amenadiel was at fault for that,” Lucifer told him. “He was apparently concerned about the engagement and asked her for help to stop it without informing me or anyone else.” 

Dan sighed heavily as he cleaned out the rag in the sink before washing his hands. “I guess I can’t really blame you for that then,” he admitted. “Laundry?” 

“Around the corner there,” Lucifer pointed. “But you’ve never exactly been nice to me.”

“Because you’ve always treated me more like a prop than a person,” Dan told him bitterly. “Cleaning supplies?” 

“Under the sink,” Lucifer told him. “When we first met you were trying to brush the murder of someone I cared about under the rug. By the time I realized that I may have misjudged you for that, you treated me like nothing more than an annoyance, so I returned the favor.” 

Dan nodded as he sprayed down the spot on the floor and wiped it up. “I guess that makes sense. Apparently we’re both at fault for that. But I don’t hate you,” Dan told him, as he got up and started cleaning up what was left of the food and wine. “I’ll order some pizza.” He realized that Lucifer hadn’t actually eaten yet and neither had he. He’d gotten the call from Trixie before he got around to it. 

“I don’t hate you either,” Lucifer admitted as Dan pulled out his phone, only slightly less confused now. 

Once Dan had ordered the pizza, he called the babysitter. “Mrs. Cole, this is Dan. I wanted to let you know that Chloe was arrested tonight so she won’t be home…no it wasn’t just childish imagination…if you want to just bring her to me…the penthouse above Lux…thank you.” Dan resisted the urge to get annoyed at the woman. When a kid is in hysterics about her mother attempting to commit murder you don’t just brush that off. He could admit that he didn’t completely believe her himself, but he at least looked into it. “Let me talk to her for a minute?” 

“Daddy! Is Lucifer okay? Did you get there in time?” Trixie asked. 

“Lucifer is fine. He already drank some of it, but we got him sorted out,” Dan told her.

“Did he have to drink the icky stuff that makes you throw up?” she asked sympathetically. She still remembered the one time she’d had to take that when she drank something she shouldn’t have when she was really little. 

Dan chuckled. “Yeah he did. But he’s okay now. Mrs. Cole is gonna bring you by here to stay the night so we can make sure that he stays okay.” 

“Okay!” Trixie said happily, only not exhuberant because she realized that it was necessary because of what happened. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said again. 

“You’re welcome, baby,” Dan told her. “I’ll see you soon.”

Once Dan hung up, Lucifer said, “You don’t need to stay, you know. I’ll be perfectly fine soon enough. I am the devil after all.”

“I know. Which is the only reason I didn’t insist you go to the hospital. But I’m also not taking the chance of there being something in that thing that can hurt even you. You can always go to the hospital instead if you’d rather, but they’ll be much harder to convince that you’re fine.” Lucifer just sighed in defeat and nodded. Since the vial did come from the Vatican apparently, it was smart to be cautious. Not that he would admit that.


	3. Chapter 3

Since that was settled, Dan headed into the spare room to clean out anything inappropriate. A few minutes later he called out to Lucifer, “Please tell me all this stuff is clean at least?” 

“Clean and sterile, detective. I’m not an imbecile,” Lucifer rolled his eyes. He may be immune to any bacteria or diseases, but that didn’t mean his human guests were. Everything was always cleaned and sterilized after every use. 

Dan gave a sigh of relief and stopped trying to avoid touching things as he put them in a bag. When he came out with it, he asked, “Where do you want me to put it?” 

“In my closet is fine,” Lucifer told him, getting up to pay for the pizza, feeling somewhat close to normal again. 

No sooner than both men sat down to eat, the elevator dinged again and Trixie came barreling out and crashed into Lucifer with a hug who groaned at the assault. “I’m sorry!” Trixie exclaimed jumping off of him. 

“It’s no matter, child. I understand I have you to thank for saving my life,” he said, willing to forgive the momentary pain for that. 

“I’m sorry it was almost too late. No one would believe me,” she said sadly. 

Lucifer felt bad for her and couldn’t resist a glare at the sheepish babysitter who had come out by now, as he reached a hand to her shoulder. “But you kept trying anyway, so thank you.” 

Trixie beamed up at him happily as Dan paid the babysitter, tempted not to do so under the circumstances, but didn’t want to make an issue of it. He definitely intended to find a new babysitter though. One that would actually listen to his daughter. “Did you have dinner yet?” Dan asked Trixie as Mrs. Cole left. 

“Yeah, but I’m still really hungry,” Trixie said looking hopefully at the pizza. 

“One piece before bed then,” Dan told her. He didn’t want her to eat too much and get sick and it was already pretty late. If not for all this mess she would have been in bed an hour ago. 

Trixie spent more time chattering than eating, but she finally finished and Dan went to tuck her in. When he came back, he refilled Lucifer’s drink and his own before going back to the couch. He didn’t show his hurt when Lucifer took a long suspicious sniff before drinking it. He couldn’t exactly blame him. “How are you doing? You know, with the Chloe thing and all,” Dan asked worriedly. He couldn’t imagine how Lucifer must be feeling. 

Lucifer considered it for a long moment before shrugging. “I honestly have no idea at the moment.” It hurt, yes. A lot. But at the same time, he’d learned that apparently everyone else knew and supported him and that helped to dull the pain as much as it confused him. On second thought sleep would probably be a good thing right now. “But I am feeling a bit tired,” he said as he downed the rest of his drink and got up to go to bed. 

“Okay. Wake me up if you start feeling bad again,” Dan told him, getting a nod in response. Once he was in his room, still in full view of the living room and Dan on the couch, he started to strip. Dan told himself that he was only watching to remind Lucifer to at least leave some shorts on with Trixie here if it became an issue, but he didn’t need to say anything. 

Dan sat up for a long time trying to get the image of Lucifer almost naked out of his mind. One of his greatest secrets was the attraction he’d always felt towards Lucifer, but he had long ago put it out of his mind. Between the fact that Lucifer never paid him the slightest bit of attention and how quickly he and Chloe got close, it was a moot point. That wasn’t even taking into consideration the fact that Lucifer definitely hadn’t seemed the type to settle down. Part of his mind tried to point out that it wasn’t that way anymore, but he swatted that thought away. Lucifer was hurting and vulnerable right now and he wasn’t about to try and take advantage of that. 

The next morning, Lucifer was up at the crack of dawn as usual and made his way quietly to the kitchen to start making some breakfast, reminding himself on the way that he was cooking for three this morning. He was almost done when the other two occupants came in, Trixie bouncing and wide awake, and Dan clearly following his nose since his eyes were barely open. Lucifer barked a laugh and set plates in front of both of them and coffee in front of Dan before looking at Trixie. “I admit I’m not familiar with what children like to drink.”

“Do you have milk?” 

“I have cream. Would that work?” You couldn’t make a white Russian without cream.

Trixie scrunched her nose and shook her head. “What about juice?” 

“I have orange juice,” Lucifer offered. For screwdrivers of course. 

“Okay. Orange juice then please,” she said with a grin and a glass was soon set in front of her as Lucifer sat down with his own plate and a very Irish coffee. 

It was halfway through breakfast when Dan was awake enough for words and he said, “Thanks for breakfast, Lucifer. It’s really good.” He got a mumbled agreement from Trixie whose mouth was full at the time. 

“It’s hardly more work to cook for three than for one,” Lucifer told him. 

As they were finishing up, Dan suddenly had a thought. “Oh crap.” 

“What is it?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“Trixie’s bus doesn’t come here. I’m gonna have to be late for work.” 

“I’ll take the miscreant to school,” Lucifer offered. It was the least he could do after she saved his life and both of them stayed last night to make sure he was well. 

“Yeah! Please!” Trixie bounced excitedly. 

Dan considered it for a moment before nodding, but he felt the need to say, “HER school.” 

Lucifer chuckled. He was never going to live that one down apparently. “Naturally.” 

“Thank you, Lucifer,” he said relieved before turning to Trixie. “Do you know what the plan was for after school today?” 

“Auntie Maze was gonna watch me this afternoon,” Trixie told him. 

“Okay. Good enough,” Dan nodded. “Hopefully we’ll have things sorted out and back to normal soon enough,” he told her, not sure if he would end up with custody or if Chloe would get her head straight to keep it. He had every intention of calling Maze this afternoon and talking to her and figuring things out in the meantime. 

When Dan left for work, Lucifer turned to Trixie. “Do you need to go home for some new clothes before school?” 

Trixie shook her head. “No. Since Daddy told me we were staying here last night I brought a change of clothes in my backpack. I just need to go change.” 

Lucifer nodded and waited patiently for her to come back out and declare that she was ready for school. “You are aware, child, that your socks don’t match?” he felt the need to point out. 

“I know. It’s okay,” she told him, so Lucifer just shrugged and motioned her to go ahead then. Just because he had a fashion sense didn’t mean he was going to force it on others. If the child wanted to go to school with unmatching socks that was her business. 

After Lucifer dropped her off, he swung by the bakery to grab coffee and pastries for everyone. He had already done so once this week, but felt the sudden desire to do so again after learning that most if not all of them knew what he was and apparently didn’t care. When he got there though, he found himself scrutinizing everyone there, trying to figure out who knew and who didn’t. By the time he got up to the lab, he had nearly driven himself crazy with it. 

When he stepped into the lab, Ella grabbed him in a big hug, barely managing to avoid spilling the coffee he’d brought her. “How are you? Are you okay?” she asked him. 

“I’m fine, Ms. Lopez,” he told her, setting her coffee on the table as she let him go. “Did you learn anything about the poison?” 

Ella paled significantly and nodded. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“I /need/ to know, Ms. Lopez,” Lucifer told her gravely. 

Ella sighed and nodded. She could understand that. “Okay. Well whoever gave her this poison wasn’t taking any chances. If anything had a chance of killing you this would and she is beyond lucky that it didn’t spill on her or anything. It’s an extremely potent mixture of Botulinum Toxin, Batrachotoxin, and Ricin.” 

Lucifer felt a wash of pain as he closed his eyes. Three of the most deadly poisons in existence. It wouldn’t have killed him exactly, but it would have been exceptionally painful, and was until it was mostly purged from his system. That explained his weakness afterwards. The small amount that had already seeped in was being fought off. “I see,” was all he said. 

“I hope you know that she’s the only one who thinks that way, Lucifer,” Ella told him. “Devil or not, you’re still you and everyone else sees that.” 

Lucifer took a few deep breaths, pushing the pain away as the confusion returned. “I still don’t understand that. If you knew, then why did you persist in calling me a ‘method actor’.”

“It’s called teasing,” she laughed. “The look on your face was hilarious.” 

“But why did you never tell me that you knew?” he asked. 

Ella shrugged. “I figured if you wanted to talk about it you would. Other than referring to yourself as the devil you never brought it up, and I remembered how defensive you got when we first met when I mentioned Hell.” 

“That was simply because you were speaking as though the fact that I worked there made me a villain,” Lucifer told her. 

Ella furrowed her brow confusedly. “I was? I didn’t mean it that way. All I meant was that there was a lot I didn’t know and couldn’t judge.” 

“I don’t mind answering questions, Ms. Lopez. If you could spread the word on that I would be grateful. Not knowing who knows and who doesn’t is driving me to distraction,” he told her. 

“Will do,” she laughed. She guessed she could see how it would be unsettling for him.


	4. Chapter 4

Once Lucifer left the lab, Ella turned her mind to how she was going to carry out her promise. As Dan had mentioned, it wasn’t something that was talked about openly. For herself, she had been afraid of being considered crazy, and she was sure that other people felt the same way. She honestly hadn’t been sure if she was the only one or not. Now that it was more in the open though thanks to Chloe’s stunt, it should be okay, but she knew that not everyone would be comfortable just going up and saying ‘hey, I know you’re the devil’. Eventually, she grinned as she had an idea. 

As Lucifer was heading down the stairs, he was called into the new lieutenant’s office. At least he could be reasonably sure that she didn’t know. She’d only been here for a week. It had taken a while to find a permanent replacement after Pierce. Once he stepped into the office and closed the door behind him, she said, “Now that your previous partner is no longer with the department, we need to see about reassigning you.”

“She’s fired?” Lucifer asked in surprise. “You should know there were extenuating circumstances…”

“I don’t care if you’re the devil, Santa Clause, or a freaking water sprite, you don’t turn on your partner. Period. And to try to kill him? I refuse to have someone capable of that in my department.” 

“You know too?” Lucifer asked in shock. 

“Yes. I do. After what happened with your previous lieutenant, the captain thought it best I be briefed on the matter before agreeing to the job. That said, I’ve been meaning to talk to you anyway. If there is something that affects this department, I expect to know about it. No matter the origins. If you can give me a good reason for us to stay out of it, then so be it, but don’t go running around behind my back like you did with the sinnerman thing. Got it?” 

Lucifer nodded slowly. “I got it…” 

“Good. Now. Do you have any requests for a new partner?” she asked him. 

“Daniel, I suppose,” Lucifer said, still too much in shock to think much about it.

“Good enough. As long as he agrees, consider it done.”

“About the det-Chloe. Her psych eval hasn’t been done yet…” he finally found the words to say. 

“And I don’t give a fig about the results. The only thing the results of that will say is whether she continues to receive her benefits or not. I know that it’s just a ploy to keep her out of jail and that you’ll probably buy off the shrink anyway. That’s not my business, but I refuse to have a detective on staff that can’t be trusted.”

“But…”

“Let me put it this way, Lucifer. Can you guarantee me, beyond a shadow of a doubt that she won’t try it again? Or that she won’t turn around and decide that the people who know about you and still support you aren’t just as evil?”

Lucifer sighed heavily. “No. I can’t.” 

“Then there you go,” she told him. “Now, the main case we’re working on right now is finding this priest who helped her. Since you’re personally involved there, you can’t help with that. You’re welcome to stick around in case something else comes up, or you can head out and I’ll have Espinoza let you know if we get another case.” 

“I suppose I’ll go then. I’ll be back tomorrow?” he half-asked and she nodded. 

Once he left, Lucifer went somewhere that he probably should have gone first thing this morning. A few hundred dollars offered to the next patient waiting and Lucifer was now next in line. It was only ten minutes until the previous patient stepped out and Linda noticed him before looking around the waiting room and sighing. “What have I told you about paying off my other patients?” she asked wearily. 

“Only to do it if it’s an emergency, which this is,” Lucifer told her as he walked into the office and sat on the couch. 

She sat down in the chair skeptically. “Okay. So what’s the emergency?” 

“The detective tried to kill me. With poison. And it turns out that the entire precinct knows that I’m the devil.” Linda just blinked at him for a long moment. “Doctor? Are you still with me?” 

“Right. Yeah. Sorry. Just took a second to get my head wrapped around that. More explaining please?” She couldn’t really fault him for bribing his way in this time. While it wasn’t the sort of emergency she had in mind when giving him the exception, it was big enough that she could accept it. When he got to the part where he wanted her to do the psych eval for Chloe, she stopped him. “I can’t, Lucifer. It would be a major breech of ethics. You’re my patient…”

“I can take care of that, doctor. Just like I did the last time. Any other doctor would waste time trying to convince her that the devil isn’t real and she wouldn’t get the help she needs.”

“Like you did last time?” she asked, buying herself time to consider the request. “Maze didn’t just kill him?”

Lucifer laughed. “No, doctor. Maze has standing orders never to kill a human without my express permission. I made a few calls, a donation here and there, and got the whole thing dropped. The right way.”

Linda snorted at his definition of ‘the right way’ but that was a horse that was long dead, so she saw no need to bring it up. “Alright. If you can smooth it over, I’ll do it. In the meantime, let’s talk about what happened. How do you feel about what she tried to do?” The rest of the hour had her tempted to pull her hair out as he bobbed and weaved with the kind of skill any boxer would kill for until their time was up. She resisted the urge to ask him why he bothered pushing his way in if he wasn’t going to talk anyway. She had gotten enough from his non-responses to see how hard he was taking this. Only the puzzle he was presented with at the same time was keeping it from overwhelming him. It hurt her heart the way he found it far more difficult to believe that other people could support him than that she could betray him and decided to focus more on that next time. 

Around lunchtime, Dan’s phone rang and when he saw it was Maze he answered. He’d been meaning to call her anyway. “Hey, is Chloe around? She’s not answering her phone and I need to make sure I’m still watching the midget today. She hasn’t said anything since she’s been back about keeping or changing the schedule.” 

“Right. Yeah. Sorry Maze. I was gonna call you. Chloe was actually arrested,” Dan told her. 

“What? For what? Where is she? I’ll bust her out of there.”

“You might not want to do that,” Dan said with a wince before telling her the story. 

“Right then. I guess I’m moving out,” she said. 

“Hang on, Maze. Don’t do anything hasty.” 

“You expect me to keep a roommate who tried to kill Lucifer and probably hates me just as much because of my relationship to him?” Maze asked incredulously. 

“I’m asking you to think of Trixie,” Dan told her. “I don’t know how this custody thing is going to shake out yet, and I would feel a lot better knowing that you’re there for Trix if she stays with her Mom.” 

“You’re assuming that she’s not gonna kick me out anyway,” Maze pointed out. 

“There is that,” Dan admitted. He hadn’t even considered that. “Either way, she’s in jail at the moment though and can’t do anything, making it my decision and I would really like you to watch her this afternoon if you could. We can figure the rest out later.”

“You actually trust me with her again?” Maze asked, remembering the fight they had a few months ago. 

“I’ve never not trusted you with her Maze. I just wanted you to be a little more careful about what she’s exposed to,” Dan told her. “I get that being a demon and all these things are a little beyond you and I could have handled the confrontation a little better, but…”

“Wait, you know? Since when?” she asked in shock. 

“Since Lucifer got shot in the penthouse a few years ago by that socialite,” Dan told her. “There comes a point where the fishy things add up too much to put aside anymore.” 

“And you didn’t freak?” Maze asked, feeling a new respect for the detective. 

“Sure I did. Had quite the little private freak out over it, but in the end it didn’t change anything. Lucifer is still Lucifer and you’re still Maze. Devil and demon aside,” Dan said matter-of-factly. 

“Okay then,” she said in satisfaction. “I’ll keep the munchkin today and until things get figured out with Chloe. After that we’ll see.” 

“Thanks Maze. I owe you one,” Dan told her. 

“No, you don’t,” she told him as she hung up. His acceptance had earned this much.


	5. Chapter 5

Father Kinley was brought in in cuffs not long after Dan got off the phone with Maze, but he was kept out of the interrogation due to personal interest since his ex-wife was the co-conspirator. Thankfully the confession came easily enough, but he was set for a psych eval too, since he kept insisting that Lucifer was the devil and that God had given him a mission. Since they knew the first part was true, there was a chance that the second part was too, but it still didn’t make him exempt from the law. As long as Lucifer was on the Earth he had the same rights as anyone else. 

Linda arrived not long after Father Kinley did and was shown to another interrogation room where Chloe was soon brought in and cuffed to the table. “Linda! I’m so glad you’re here. You have to help me.” 

“That’s why I’m here, Chloe,” she told her. “But first you’re going to have to tell me what kind of help you want. Right now your options are going to trial for attempted murder or going to a mental hospital for delusions.” 

“But if we tell everyone about Lucifer…”

“No,” Linda said firmly. “Lucifer is a good man who wants nothing more than to just live his life and be judged on who he is. I will have no part in taking that away from him. Even if it would make a difference for you, which, considering how many other people know and are fine with it, is a very big if.” 

“But he’s the devil,” she insisted. 

“And he’s an angel,” Linda told her. “We all have both dark and light in us and he’s no exception. It’s what we choose to do with it that matters and he has done nothing wrong to anyone.” 

“He belongs in Hell. That’s where God sent him,” Chloe pointed out. 

“And if God wants him back there, you really think he can’t do it himself?” Linda asked. “Or even send another angel to do it? What gives /you/ the right to decide that?” 

“I was chosen…”

“By a crazy priest who was already excommunicated for being an extremist,” Linda told her. 

“It’s my duty. It’s why I’m here,” Chloe said. “It’s why I was put in his path.” 

Linda shook her head and sighed, realizing that there was really no getting through to her. “I guess mental hospital it is then.” She got up. “Goodbye, Chloe.” 

Chloe burst into tears as she was taken back to her cell and told that she would be going before the judge the next day to rule on her competency to stand trial. 

When Dan got off work that evening, he called Maze and asked her if she would be okay with Trixie for another hour, and she easily agreed. She’d missed Trixie a lot and they were having fun. That settled, Dan headed for Lux and when he didn’t see Lucifer in the club, he went up to the penthouse. He heard the music before the elevator doors opened and took one step out and just listened for a few minutes before going over and putting a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. 

Lucifer started at the touch and stopped playing to turn and look. “Daniel. What brings you here?” 

“I just wanted to let you know that we got the priest and he’s waiting for a competency hearing too. Chloe’s hearing is in the morning and Linda already saw her and deemed her unfit to stand trial,” Dan told him. 

“I see. And you couldn’t have told me that over the phone?” Lucifer asked in confusion. 

“I also wanted to check on you and see how you’re doing,” Dan admitted. 

Lucifer shrugged. “Better than I probably should be,” he told him. “Did you speak with the lieutenant today?” 

“Yeah. I did. I’m good with being your partner, but I’m surprised you didn’t pick someone else,” Dan said confused. 

“I know you better than I know anyone else,” Lucifer told him, not wanting to admit that he just wanted to get closer to him. 

“Fair enough,” Dan said. When the conversation lapsed, Dan told him, “Well I guess I should go see Trixie and talk to Maze about how we’re going to work things out.”

By the next morning, Chloe was much more calm and collected. She wouldn’t be the first person jailed for following God and she knew that she would be rewarded when the time came. She finally understood what faith meant to people. It had always seemed so ridiculous, but learning that it was all real turned everything around for her. She glared at Lucifer and Maze when she saw them sitting in the courtroom next to Dan. 

The judge took a look at the report from Linda, the reports from the scene, along with the results of the testing of the poison, asked Chloe a few questions to which she showed no remorse and Dan sighed and shook his head. It had always been a long shot, but if she had shown remorse, she might have walked out of here. When she clearly said that she would finish the job if given the chance, she was sent to a mental hospital and would only be released when she was deemed well enough to stand trial. 

As they walked out, Maze turned to Dan and said, “So we’re going with plan B?” 

“Looks like it. You’re still good with that?” 

“You’ll still let me burn her stuff?” 

“After the thirty days has passed, yes,” Dan told her. 

“Then I’m still good with it,” Maze said with a nod as she walked off. If she hurried she could pick up a bounty before Trixie got home from school. 

“What, exactly, is plan B?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“Me moving into Chloe’s room in the apartment so Trixie doesn’t have to be uprooted,” Dan told him. He was actually pretty glad about it. His hole in the wall one room craphole was a nightmare, but with child support and the demotion that he had finally crawled his way out of it was all he could afford by himself. Now that he wouldn’t have to pay the child support anymore he would easily be able to cover his half sharing with Maze. 

“That makes perfect sense,” Lucifer told him as they walked next door to the precinct. When he got inside he stopped in his tracks in confusion. 

“Oh, hey Lucifer!” Ella said as she bounded up and slapped a sticker on both of their chests. 

“What is this, Ms. Lopez?” Lucifer asked looking at the smiling devil face emoji sticker. 

“Oh, it’s just a little something I came up with to help with your issue. Everyone wearing a sticker knows about you and is cool with it,” she said cheerfully. “This way you don’t have to drive yourself crazy wondering.” 

Dan snorted a few times, trying to hold back his laugh before he lost the battle, and it was the gob-smacked look on Lucifer’s face that did it. Dan wasn’t sure if that was because of the insanity of the admittedly good idea or the number of people with the stickers, but it was still a classic look. Apparently Ella thought so too because she pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, turning the look into a glare. She laughed and made a strategic retreat back to her lab as the lieutenant came out, also wearing a sticker, and handed them a case file.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse is back from vacation so I'm giving this one another try.

Over the course of the day, Lucifer realized that this just wouldn’t do. He needed more than just knowing who knew and who didn’t and he turned it over in his head for a while. By mid-afternoon, he had an idea and started making the rounds, inviting everyone with a sticker to a private party at Lux on Sunday. He knew that a few people would be on call, but it was the day that most of the people would more than likely be free to come and even the ones on call could if they weren’t called in. Everyone promised to at least try to make it, so he was fine with that. At least all this was still helping him to keep his mind off his pain. 

When he got home, he called Linda and invited her too. He let her know that the party would start with a Q and A session and she would be likely to learn things that she didn’t know and would be welcome to help answer what she did if she was interested in coming. She agreed as well, but reminded him that she couldn’t drink due to the baby. He did ask her to keep it a secret from Amenadiel though. His brother definitely wouldn’t appreciate how many humans knew their secret and would appreciate his willingness to answer their questions even less. Since Linda knew how Amenadiel was about that sort of thing, she agreed not to say anything. 

That done, his next call was to Maze. Since none of his normal bartenders could be there since they weren’t in on the secret, as far as he knew at least, he needed someone that was who could tend bar. That led to a discussion between her and Dan over care for Trixie. Lucifer wanted Dan there, but he needed Maze there so if they couldn’t find another babysitter for the night Dan would just have to be caught up later. At least they had a few days to find someone. Maze did extort him quite a bit for the favor though, but that much was expected. She had quit being his bartender for a reason and he hadn’t expected her to come back lightly. Even just for one night. 

When Sunday rolled around, everyone showed up reasonably on time and by two thirty, Lucifer was ready to get this show on the road and he cut the music and stood on the bar. “Okay, so I wanted you all here for two reasons. First, to thank you all for your support, and also, to answer some of the myriad of questions I’m sure you all have, so lets get those out of the way before we get this party started shall we?” He waited for a good long while as murmurs rumbled through the crowd, but no one spoke up. “Come on. Someone must have something. Out with it,” Lucifer said encouragingly. 

“How do I stay out of Hell?” Parsons finally called out. 

Lucifer laughed, and raised his glass to the detective that he’d barely known before all this. “That’s very simple. Just don’t feel guilty. It’s your guilt that decides whether or not you go to Hell. While occasionally there is someone bad enough to be chucked out of heaven despite not feeling guilty, that just applies to mass murderers and the like and I doubt there are any of those here.” 

That question seemed to make people more comfortable with the idea and Ella was the next to ask, “What happened with the whole fall from heaven thing?” 

Lucifer sighed as he sat down on the bar so he was still elevated enough that they could see him but was more comfortable for a long story. He had been afraid someone would ask that, and if it had been later on he might have been more willing to brush it off, but he wanted to prove that he was open to questions so he couldn’t not answer. “The official story is that I was jealous of humanity, and that’s true to a point. My father began to treat them as favored pets, using them as an example to all of us as to how he wanted us to be, which did irritate me, but not for the reason that people think. Humans back then had no free will. They were nothing more than obedient drones. Even domesticated dogs have the option to disobey, the ability to turn on their owners if they choose. Those humans didn’t even have that. I didn’t think that was fair. To them for being forced into that position or to us for being held to the same standard, so I gave them free will. I gave them the fruit from the tree of life which gave them the ability to think for themselves. That pissed dear old Dad off royally, especially when I stayed with them so long to teach them so he kicked me out. Sent me to Hell to watch over the souls of the damned since I was the one who did it to them.” 

“He blamed you for it?” Dan asked aghast. 

“Well I was the one who gave them free will. Without that, there would have been no damned souls,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“Well I for one thank you for the gift of free will,” one of the uniformed officers, Joan, called out, getting an answering chorus of ‘hear hear’ from the rest of the room. 

“Other than your powers, how are you different from humans?” Davis called when he could see how uncomfortable Lucifer was at the gratitude. 

“A lot of ways. My stamina for one, as many of you know,” he said with an amused wink, “my senses are much more sensitive, I’m stronger and faster. We angels were designed to live for eternity rather than just a few decades so we have a greater mental capacity to be able to learn and adapt more to changing times, and our emotions work differently than humans.”

“Why do you even care about us at all then?” someone asked. “I mean, we must be so insignificant to you.” 

“No life is insignificant,” Lucifer said seriously, wanting to get this point across. He’d been afraid that people would think that way or that they would be jealous of his abilities. That was the main reason that divinity and humanity weren’t supposed to mix. He hoped that since they had known what he was for a while that it would be easier to overcome, but he was starting to wonder with that comment. “It doesn’t matter that you don’t live as long or don’t have as many abilities. If anything, that makes you more special than me. That you can do so much with so little.” 

“But why work with the police?” someone else asked. 

“Because I don’t have the ability to affect the world on a large scale like my father does. I’m limited to doing what little I can. I’m a punisher of evil, yes, but what most people fail to realize is that being a protector of the innocent comes with that. I can’t protect everyone, but working with the department allows me to do what little I can,” Lucifer explained. 

“Then why the club?” Parsons asked curiously. 

“Partially for fun. I did come up here for a vacation, after all,” Lucifer laughed, seeing that he had the crowd back on his side now. “But also to give people a safe place to have it. There is a reason that I have so much security and pay my employees so well. This is a place without judgement where people are free to be themselves and enjoy themselves,” Lucifer told them. 

“Do you have wings?” Ella asked excitedly. 

Lucifer laughed. “Yes, I do, but don’t ask me to show them. Neither the wings nor my devil form are things to just show around freely.”

“Is your devil form how you scare suspects into submission?” Dan asked. 

“Occasionally, with the worst of them, I allow them to see little flashes. Usually I just use my powers of persuasion though.” 

“How many humans have you killed?” someone called from the back, only to get glares from most of the room for it. 

Lucifer was visibly moved by the defense of him, and when he opened his mouth to answer the question, Dan stepped up. “You don’t have to answer that,” he said seriously. 

“Yes, I believe I do,” Lucifer told him, knowing that despite the fact that people didn’t seem happy with the person who asked, now that it was out there they would always wonder. “I have killed one human. A little over a month ago, Marcus Pierce, also known as Cain, the first murderer, managed to break the curse that kept him immortal. He chose to continue to hurt people and try to kill me and I was forced to kill him in self-defense. His immortality had given him strength and reflexes on par with my own and I was unable to subdue him instead. That was the first and hopefully only time I will ever have to kill a human.” 

Dan nodded sympathetically and reached out a hand to Lucifer’s arm and gave it a squeeze, just as Ella rushed forward to hug him. He slowly raised his arms around her, still not comfortable with it and she asked him, “Is Hell the reason you’re so uncomfortable with affection or is it the different emotions thing?” 

She had asked him quietly enough that Dan and Maze, who was still behind the bar were the only one who could hear, and he answered just as quietly, not really wanting that broadcast to everyone. “A little of both, but mostly Hell.” 

Ella nodded and let go. “Would you rather I stopped hugging you then?” she asked, desperately hoping that the answer wasn’t yes. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but she hated the idea that the trauma made him unable to accept affection. 

“No,” Lucifer said quickly. “It’s fine.” Ella smiled brightly and hugged him again before stepping back and joining Dan at the front of the group. “Any other questions?” he asked. 

“Are any of the stories about the devil true at all?” someone asked curiously. “Not that I think you would be evil,” they quickly corrected. “But we all know how one little piece of truth can be blown out of proportion and all.”

Lucifer nodded in acceptance of the question and explanation as he said, “Some of them do have a nugget of truth. For example, there are a few stories of me kidnapping children, and that has happened. When they were being abused and mistreated, I took them away and found them happier homes. This was before there were people dedicated to the protection of children of course. Before any law enforcement existed, I did extract my own punishments during the rare times I was on Earth, but only the truly evil and never death. Those stories were told and twisted to make me the villain that heaven said I was.” 

No one present doubted any of that nor did they fault him for it. If there truly was no child protective services and no law enforcement, then he was just doing what he could. He had proved that he was willing to work within the law now that it existed, at least mostly, so it really didn’t matter. There were a few more minor questions before no one had anything else they wanted to ask and Lucifer restarted the music and the party.


	7. Chapter 7

Linda cornered Lucifer pretty quickly and asked a question that she didn’t want to ask in front of everyone, and knew that he wasn’t likely to answer in front of everyone either. “Why did you never say anything about the different emotions? It would have been easier to help you through things if I’d known.” 

“Because my purpose in seeing you was to better understand human emotions and interactions. Yes, at first it was to get mine under control after being so closed off in Hell for so long, but you didn’t believe me about being the devil then and were able to help me well enough anyway,” Lucifer told her. 

“Well I’m not going to keep you away from the party too long to talk about it, but expect the subject to come up during our next session,” she said mock-sternly. 

Lucifer chuckled amusedly. “I would expect nothing less my dear doctor.” It wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed talking about, but since she would be raising an angel baby soon enough, it was something she would need to know anyway. He doubted Amenadiel would bring it up. He didn’t usually think of those type of things and hadn’t had nearly enough contact with humanity to truly understand the differences anyway. 

Lucifer spent the rest of the evening mingling with people, trying to better get to know those who stood by him so unquestioningly. That was the main reason for the party. To that end, he spent proportionately less time with Dan, Ella, and Linda, not that he ignored them in the slightest of course. It wasn’t until near the end of the night, when a lot of the people had already filed out that he found himself cornered by a very drunk Dan. “If you never hated me, how come you never tried to pick me up?” Dan slurred. 

“Because I didn’t think my overtures would be welcome,” Lucifer said amusedly. “If I had, would you have accepted?” 

“I dunno. Maybe,” Dan admitted. “I wanted to, but I’m not so good with one night stands so maybe not.” 

“Why aren’t you good with one night stands?” Lucifer asked curiously, sipping his drink as he scrutinized the drunk man. 

“My heart always gets involved too easy,” he answered, despite the fact that some part of him knew that he would never have done so if not for the insane amount of alcohol he’d drank tonight. “Especially with you,” he couldn’t stop himself from adding. 

“Is that so,” Lucifer said with a smirk, losing himself in thought. “Perhaps we should talk more on this tomorrow then.” It was promising at least. He’d already let one detective get too close without testing her suitability though. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give it a shot. Once he got Daniel into bed, he would know one way or the other. He headed over to the bar and handed Dan off to Maze. “Since there aren’t too many people left, you’re welcome to take this one home and I can shut the place down if you like.” 

“Sure thing,” Maze told him, coming around the bar to help Dan to the car. “It’s almost time to relieve the babysitter anyway.” 

Lucifer was more than a little distracted for the last hour until the rest of the people filed out, and when he went upstairs, it took him quite a while to fall asleep. The next morning he headed to the precinct earlier than usual and chuckled at the obvious hangover Dan was sporting, along with half the department. He caught the half-hearted glares that the also hungover lieutenant was sending him too. He decided to wait until after lunch to say anything to Dan and just went out of his way to be helpful in the meantime, even going so far as to help with paperwork. “You’re doing paperwork?” Dan asked incredulously. 

“Well seeing as it is at least somewhat my fault that you’re in your current state, it’s only fair if I help alleviate your burden is it not?” Lucifer said amusedly. He got a grunt of agreement at that as Dan slid a stack of the paperwork over to his partner. When they hadn’t gotten a case by mid-afternoon, Lucifer was getting ready to leave, but not until he turned to Dan and asked, “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” 

Dan scrutinized him for a moment, blushing slightly as he remembered what he had said last night, before asking, “It depends. Did you mean it when you said you don’t hate me?” He didn’t think that Lucifer would intentionally set out to break his heart otherwise after what he’d admitted about his problem with one night stands. 

“No, Daniel. I don’t hate you at all,” Lucifer assured him, understanding why he was asking. 

“Then yeah. Okay. As long as Maze can stay with Trix. I’ll have to check with her first,” Dan told him. 

“Understandable. Text me if you can’t make it. Otherwise, just come by the penthouse when you’re finished here,” Lucifer told him. 

“I’m not making any promises for after dinner,” Dan felt the need to explain. 

“Nor would I ask you for any,” Lucifer assured him. Accepting a promise for something like that was too much like saying you couldn’t back out and no was always an acceptable answer.

“Okay, then I’ll check with Maze and let you know,” Dan said with a smile. 

Lucifer nodded and left with a bit of a spring in his step. Despite the lack of promise, Lucifer suspected that he would get Dan into bed tonight. He was clearly attracted which meant that Lucifer could easily entice him before Dan even knew what was happening. At least he hoped he could. 

Once he got home he started on dinner. Chilorio with bolillo and nopalitos and homemade chocolate pudding for dessert. Essentially, Dan’s favorite foods that he didn’t get very often. At least not of good quality. What was served in all but the most high end restaurants barely qualified. When Dan showed up three hours later, it was getting ready to hit the table. “That smells amazing,” Dan said with wide eyes as he stepped into the kitchen. 

“Hopefully it tastes just as good. It’s been a while since I’ve tried my hand at Mexican cuisine,” Lucifer admitted. 

Dan was more than touched at the thought that Lucifer would go to so much trouble for him and damned if he even knew how Lucifer knew what his favorite meal was. Knowing the devil it was probably something he mentioned in passing to someone within Lucifer’s earshot three years ago or something like that. Once he tried it, he couldn’t help the moan that escaped from him. “Definitely tastes as amazing as it smells,” Dan told him, getting a grin from Lucifer. Not a smirk. An actual open, happy grin. That made Dan more determined to air his concerns here though. It would be far too easy to fall. “Can I ask…why are you doing this?” 

“I would have thought that was obvious,” Lucifer said with a raised eyebrow. 

“No, I get that. It’s just…I mean…”

“Spit it out, Daniel,” Lucifer said encouragingly. “I promise I won’t take offense.” 

“I just…don’t want to be a rebound,” Dan said bluntly, not sure how to soften that blow. “I mean…everything with Chloe and all…” 

“I assure you, Daniel, you are far from a rebound,” Lucifer told him, unwilling and unable to say much more. Not yet. 

Dan looked at him curiously, hoping for more, but when he realized it wasn’t coming, that just brought up more questions. “You mentioned last night that your emotions were different than humans. How so?” 

Lucifer chuckled and shook his head. Of all the questions to ask, he had to ask that one. Right now. “That’s not something I can answer right now,” Lucifer told him. “When I can, I’m sure you’ll understand why.” 

“What /can/ you tell me?” Dan asked, even more concerned now. 

“I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no trace of any feelings left in me for Chloe Decker,” Lucifer told him. 

“So you’re over everything she did to you?” Dan asked surprised. 

“I don’t know that I’d say ‘over it’. It still hurts and will probably always hurt. I’m most definitely over /her/ though,” Lucifer said seriously. After what she’d done, he couldn’t feel any differently. It was only the confidence instilled in him by the support of everyone else that allowed him to move forward in the face of that though. That gave him the courage to keep trying.


	8. Chapter 8

He could tell that Dan still looked nervous, so Lucifer reached across the table and took his hand. “I can’t promise you that I won’t break your heart. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future between us, but I can promise you that it isn’t my intention. That I do understand your issue with one night stands and I hope that this can be more than that.” 

Dan relaxed a great deal at that and squeezed his hand with a smile. That was exactly what he needed to hear. “Me too. And thank you,” Dan said softly. 

Once they were done eating, Lucifer went to put the dishes in the sink and when Dan got up, he reached out a hand to Dan’s cheek and leaned in for a soft slow kiss. One designed to make him feel like the center of Lucifer’s world. Dan’s breath hitched and he leaned into it, moving a hand to Lucifer’s hip. Lucifer didn’t deepen the kiss though. Not right now. They had all night and with Dan’s concerns he knew he couldn’t rush things. Especially since he felt a stronger connection than usual just from that one kiss. He knew that he was getting his hopes up too high for this, but what else could he do. He couldn’t just walk away now. When he pulled away after a long moment, he didn’t go far, caressing his thumb over Dan’s cheek as he asked, “Would you like to watch a movie?” 

Dan nodded, not quite in the state of mind for words at the moment, so Lucifer led him to the living room and cued up the first Bodybags movie. If things went well, he could use the rest of the movies in the series to entice him over again. Over the course of the movie, Lucifer paid far more attention to Dan than the movie, starting slow by wrapping an arm around him and rubbing his arm gently, leaning over for a warm kiss whenever Dan turned to look at him. Then he started pressing soft kisses to Dan’s neck when he was turned away. He knew he was getting somewhere when Dan tilted his head to the side to give him better access and moved a hand to Lucifer’s leg. 

Lucifer took that as an invitation for more and started kissing Dan’s neck with more fervor, adding sucks and licks and nips along the way and it wasn’t long before Dan shifted more towards him, raising a hand to trail over Lucifer’s chest and Lucifer captured his lips again, this time deepening the kiss. It wasn’t until Dan’s hand trailed down to Lucifer’s clothed erection that he knew he had Dan eating out of the palm of his hand. They stayed like that for a long while, making out and exploring their bodies with their hands until the movie ended. 

Lucifer got up, pulling Dan to his feet with him, and pulled him in tightly, allowing their hard lengths to rub together, pulling moans from both of them. Dan pulled away enough to move his hands to start unbuttoning Lucifer’s shirt and vest as Lucifer’s hands slid underneath Dan’s shirt, waiting until his was completely unbuttoned to strip it over his head before his own upper layers were slid off his shoulders. Lucifer started backing towards the bedroom, pulling Dan with him, not breaking the kiss. 

Dan pressed Lucifer back onto the bed and started trailing his lips and teeth and tongue over Lucifer’s neck and shoulders and then continuing down as Lucifer ran his hands through Dan’s hair and over whatever part of his body he could reach. It wasn’t long before he felt Dan’s hands working his belt as he pressed sloppy kisses over his stomach and he moaned at the thought of what was coming. He reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the lube as he lifted his hips to allow his pants to be removed and pressed the tube of lube into Dan’s hand. Dan wasted no time slicking up his fingers and sliding one inside Lucifer at the same time as he took the large beautiful cock in his mouth and Lucifer writhed beneath him. 

Dan was beyond nervous about this, but wanted it far too badly to resist. He just hoped it didn’t end like he feared it would. Lucifer had said that he wanted more though and Lucifer didn’t lie. That was the only reason he’d let things go this far. He prepped Lucifer quickly, enjoying the taste of him at the same time, before moving back up and slicking up his cock. As soon as he was in place, Lucifer pulled him back in for a deep passionate kiss before Dan could even ask if he was ready. He took the action as an answer though and started pressing into the tight heat slowly. 

Lucifer moaned, both at the taste of himself in Dan’s mouth and the feeling of being filled up. Part of him wanted to get this show on the road already, but a bigger part of him didn’t want to rush a second. This was already more than he’d ever had before and they had barely gotten started. As Dan slowly began to move, Lucifer’s hands were trailing every inch of warm skin as he rocked his hips in time with the slow thrusts. 

Dan was trying to hold back as much as possible. To get as much of this as possible. All that attention on the couch was working against him though and he found himself speeding up much sooner than he wanted to. Thankfully it seemed like Lucifer was right there with him and Dan reached between them and started stroking Lucifer’s leaking cock in time with his thrusts. He wanted to get Lucifer off first, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold back. His eyes met Lucifer’s just as the devil cried out his name and the clenching around him was more than enough to pull him over the edge too as close as he’d been. 

They kept each other’s eyes as they rode out their waves and when it was over, Lucifer pulled Dan down for a soft slow kiss. This was it. This was everything he’d been looking for for so long. They hadn’t quite caught their breath enough for it to last long, but the hand on the back of Dan’s neck didn’t let him go far as their foreheads pressed together and their panting breaths mingled in the minute space between them. 

As Dan tried to catch his breath he was overcome with emotion. He knew he tended to fall hard and fast and had already been well on the way with Lucifer even before all this, but there was more than that too. At least for his part. He desperately hoped that Lucifer was on the same page. It certainly seemed like he was, but for all Dan knew this was completely common for him. Once he felt like his arms couldn’t hold him up anymore, he half rolled to the side, not missing the slight whimper that Lucifer cut off almost the second it came out. 

Lucifer followed Dan’s roll, not ready for this moment to end yet and pressed another soft kiss to Dan’s lips, his hand coming up to his lover’s cheek. Dan was perfectly willing to continue the moment as well and wrapped an arm around Lucifer’s back, holding him close even as the kiss ended and they just laid there for a long moment lost in each other. After a while, Dan couldn’t keep the breathless words from escaping his lips, “Please don’t walk away from this.” 

Lucifer smiled, almost sadly, and whispered back, “Where we go from here is entirely in your hands, love.” He ran his thumb over Dan’s cheek, knowing that it was time for the conversation that he’d put off before. “Do you still want to know how emotions are different for me?” 

“I thought you said you couldn’t tell me,” Dan asked confused. 

“I couldn’t then. I can now,” Lucifer told him. 

“After we slept together?” Dan asked, wondering if there was more to it than that. 

“Yes. I couldn’t tell you before because I didn’t want what you learned to affect your actions here.” 

When nothing else came after that, Dan tried to prompt. “I don’t understand. Why would what I learned affect anything?” He was a little worried now too. If there was more to that than just sex, he really needed to know. 

“It’s complicated, so bear with me. I’ve never actually tried to explain this before and I will probably fail miserably at it,” Lucifer admitted, rolling to his back and pulling Dan to his side. When he got a nervous nod from Dan he took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to start. “In many ways my emotions are deeper than that of humans, but also simpler. Some might say more primitive, which I suppose is true in a manner of speaking, but more pure would be a better descriptor.” 

“What do you mean?” Dan asked as he trailed a hand over Lucifer’s chest and stomach. 

“Take love for example. Humans fall in and out of love all the time. Their commitments mean next to nothing. We’re not like that. Once we’ve truly fallen in love, that’s it. Ever,” Lucifer explained. 

“So you’re saying that you’ll always love Chloe then?” Dan asked, hand stilling as he tried to keep the hurt from his voice. 

“No,” Lucifer told him, leaning his head against Dan’s. “I didn’t love her and never will now. All we had was potential. Potential that she threw away when she proved that she was just as shallow and fickle as anyone else,” Lucifer told him. “It was my fault really. I was the one who let her get too close without testing her suitability.” 

“Testing her how and suitability for what?” 

“Suitability as…as a mate,” Lucifer said, knowing that this was where the hard part started.


	9. Chapter 9

“Mate as in…” Dan asked with wide eyes. 

“As in an eternal soul bond,” Lucifer said forcing his voice to remain even. 

“A-and testing…”

Lucifer looked Dan deep in the eyes as he said, “Is about looking for a connection. Something real and deep. Sex is the best way to test for potential. At least with humans anyway.”

“That’s why you’ve always slept around so much?” Lucifer nodded. “How is that even a test?” 

“Because sex is when people are at their most real. Raw. Uncontrolled. Pure. If a connection is going to form, that’s when it will happen. Of course, that’s before I realized that human are capable of being so intimate with someone that means nothing to them,” Lucifer said, still unable to keep all the hurt out of his voice even after all this time. 

“That’s why it bothered you so much,” Dan figured out. “And why you slowed down after that. Everyone thought it was because of…” he trailed off. 

“And I let them think that,” Lucifer told him, trailing a hand over his lover’s back. “And in a way it was. I was reevaluating my methods. Decided to try a different way. Only for it to turn out even worse.” 

Dan decided to get the conversation back on track. “Then this is…” Dan asked, feeling his heart about to beat out of his chest at the very idea. 

“This connection here is everything I’ve been looking for,” Lucifer said reaching over to brush his hand down Dan’s face. “That’s what I meant when I said that where we go from here is completely up to you. If eternity isn’t something you could live with then we can just go our separate ways.” 

“You…you’re asking me for eternity…a-after one date?” Dan asked incredulously, fighting the urge to bolt. He may fall hard and fast, but an eternal commitment was way beyond what he was ready for. 

“Oh no. Not at all. I’m certainly not ready for that kind of commitment yet and I know you’re not either. All I mean is that I know eternity is a lot to ask for from a human and it’s far more complicated than it is with celestials. I’m not asking for a commitment now. I’m just asking if that’s something that you could ever see yourself accepting in the future. If you’re completely against the idea, then there’s no point in going further here.” 

“I…it…that…that’s not something I can really decide right this second. I mean…I would have to think about it and…and I need more information before I can even begin to decide. Like how is it more complicated with humans to start with,” Dan stammered. 

Lucifer smiled brightly and leaned down for a soft short kiss. “Of course,” he said happily. Dan had just passed the second test. He didn’t just tell him what he wanted to hear. “You see, living humans can’t traverse the dimensions. Were we to complete a bond, you would never be able to enter heaven. You would never be able to see your lost family and friends again. You would have to watch all the mortals you care about die and move on. On the plus side, you also would never be able to enter Hell, but I’m sure that’s a small comfort.”

“What if you had to go back to Hell? I would just be alone?” Dan asked. The rest of that was self-explanatory, though would take a lot of thought if he could live with that. 

“On the contrary. I would never be able to go back to Hell again. Not even my father could separate a soul bond,” Lucifer told him. 

“So that’s why you’re doing all this? You’re trying to avoid having to go back to Hell?” Dan asked offended as he started to pull away from Lucifer. 

Lucifer’s arms tightened around him. “No, no, no. I can’t say that’s not part of it, because it is, but if that’s all it was then I would have just grabbed the first willing person and forged the bond,” He said quickly. “Eternity is far too long to be with someone that isn’t right though. It’s not something to rush into or force. While avoiding Hell is part of my motivation, most of it is just that I’m tired of being alone. I want something real. I want some/one/ who can and will stand by my side so I’ll never have to be alone again.” 

Dan sighed and relaxed. He supposed he could understand that. That was all anyone wanted really. Someone to love. He wouldn’t even really blame him if it was just to avoid Hell. Dan would do just about anything to avoid Hell himself after all. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I still need time to think about whether that’s something I can live with though.” 

“I completely understand,” Lucifer told him. “Just let me know when you’ve decided?” 

“I will,” Dan promised. Part of him loved the idea of having someone for eternity. Someone who would always love him. Who he could always count on. The idea of living forever and watching everyone he knew die, including Trix, wasn’t so good. 

“Just do me a favor please, and don’t tell anyone about any of this. Especially my brother. He would stop me by any means necessary if he knew what I wanted to do.”

“Why?” Dan asked confused, lifting his head to look at Lucifer. Wouldn’t he be happy for his brother if he found happiness?

“Because the second I have a completed soul bond to a human, I can never return to Hell. He’s letting me have this time on Earth for now, but he would never accept the idea that I could never go back. That someone else would have to be sent to take over the throne.”

“Would he worry that it would fall to him then?” Dan asked as he laid his head back on Lucifer’s chest.

“Possibly. He was sent to patrol in my absence, but unless Dad is even more of a bastard than I remember he wouldn’t send Amenadiel permanently. Not when he has a child on the way,” Lucifer told him. 

“But he would have to send one of your other brothers or sisters?” 

“Yes. And I don’t want any of them to have to deal with the horrors of Hell, but I’ve done my part. I’ve kept Hell running for millennia. Since time moves so much faster there, I’ve spent longer in Hell than any of them have been alive, even Amenadiel as the eldest. I’m done. There are thousands of them. They can set up a rotation or something for all I care, but I’m out.” 

“I can’t really blame you for that,” Dan said sympathetically, pressing a kiss to Lucifer’s lips as his hand trailed over the devil’s side. “Does that mean that I can’t talk it over with Linda either?” Dan asked. He’d just started seeing her recently to help him deal with things. 

“In her official capacity when it’s covered by confidentiality, then sure, but make sure she knows that Amenadiel can never find out,” Lucifer told him. He intended to talk it over with her as well so it would be rather hypocritical of him to tell Dan not to. 

“How could he not think you’d be trying this though? I mean, anyone in your position would I would think,” Dan asked curiously. 

“Because Amenadiel consistently underestimates me, at least partially encouraged by me of course. He believes that the idea of commitment is repulsive to me. Eternal commitment he thinks is completely beyond me. He told me once that I never get emotionally attached to anyone,” Lucifer chuckled. 

“You do give off that vibe most of the time,” Dan admitted. “But it’s not that hard to see through.” 

“Perhaps not for you, but Amenadiel has had his opinion of me set in stone since the moment I fell and he is too stubborn to see that he’s wrong.” 

“Brothers can be like that,” Dan said wryly, knowing how his own brothers tended to see him the way he was as a teenager no matter how much time had passed. “But we got a little sidetracked. Let’s say that I decide that I can live with eternity. Then what?” 

“Then we see where things go. If we can really be happy together,” Lucifer told him. 

“And how does the bonding thing work?” Dan asked, tilting his head to look up at Lucifer. 

Lucifer chuckled and kissed him softly. “We can talk about that when and if we get that far, love.” 

“Fair enough. I should get going anyway,” Dan said sadly, snuggling tighter against Lucifer for a minute. 

“Why?” Lucifer asked curiously. “I’m sure your offspring is already in bed by now and since Maze lives there you shouldn’t need to be home until morning.” 

“Yeah, but Trix has been having nightmares since everything happened and it’s not fair for Maze to have to deal with that all night,” Dan pointed out. 

“I see. In that case, you should go,” Lucifer said, giving Dan one last deep kiss before letting go.

Dan got up and started looking for his clothes as he said, “I’m sorry. I just…”

“Don’t be,” Lucifer cut him off. “Your child comes first as it should be.”


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Lucifer headed to his appointment with Linda with a bit of a spring in his step. Once he was in the office and seated, she got to business. “How are you?” she asked concerned. 

“I’m good, actually,” Lucifer told her, as surprised as she was at that.

“Are you?” she asked skeptically. “I know that it got sidetracked with learning about everyone else that knew about you, but you can’t have just forgotten what Chloe did to you.”

“I haven’t, and I won’t. It will probably always hurt, but it’s basically been added to the pile of things that will always hurt at this point.” 

“Oh? Is that something with how you mentioned that your emotions work differently than humans?” she asked, not wanting to jump to conclusions and assume human responses from him anymore. 

“Somewhat,” Lucifer admitted. “When you live for eternity, grudges come and go much easier than for humans. I mean, when you think of all the things Amenadiel has put me through in the past and we’re almost brothers again now…”

“I can see that,” Linda admitted. She wasn’t so sure that he was over it, but she could admit that it could just as easily be her human perceptions that she was putting on him. He didn’t seem to be dwelling anymore at least. “Just remember that she is human so she still deserves the human punishment,” she had to point out. 

“I’m aware and while I won’t seek to make things more difficult for her, nor will I attempt to get her off either,” Lucifer told her. 

“Fair enough,” Linda said with a nod. While no one would blame him for going after her, she got why he wouldn’t, even without the whole not holding grudges thing. “I do have to ask though, you mentioned not holding grudges but your father…”

“My father has never made any attempt to resolve things and has not even spoken to me since throwing me into Hell. That is a completely different situation,” Lucifer said coldly. 

“Understandable,” Linda agreed. She couldn’t really dispute that in the slightest. She definitely wasn’t going to try and talk Lucifer into forgiving him under those circumstances, though she could still attempt to get him to let go of the bitterness for his own sake. That was a very long term problem though. “How are you handling everyone knowing about you? Have there been any incidents?” 

“Not really. Things seem to be much the same as normal, just with a bit more understanding. Parsons and Davis even asked me to come help interrogate a recalcitrant suspect yesterday so I could do my thing.”

“And how does that acceptance make you feel?” Linda asked, knowing that without that coming on the heels of the betrayal he truly would have been a wreck. 

“I’m not really sure. It still doesn’t make sense to me and probably never will, but there is a saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth.” 

Linda chuckled. “There is that, but why doesn’t it make sense to you?” 

“Because I’m the devil. Humans don’t…understand.”

“You’re so used to being blamed for all the evil in the world that you don’t realize that getting to know the real you changes that,” Linda both asked and explained. 

“I suppose,” Lucifer said thoughtfully. 

“Can you tell me a little more about the emotional differences?” Linda asked when she realized that there was nothing else he wanted to talk about right now. 

“Yes, I suppose I should, but it will bring up a subject that I must make absolutely certain will never be brought up with my brother,” Lucifer told her. 

“You know I take confidentiality seriously,” Linda said, a little hurt by the implication. 

“I know, but this is a little more serious than normal confidentiality,” Lucifer told her. 

“You have my word that Amenadiel nor anyone else will know a word of what we speak of here,” Linda assured him. 

“Thank you. And I’m assuming that since you’re asking, he hasn’t had this conversation with you which isn’t really surprising. The idea of tying himself to a human for eternity isn’t something my brother would ever consider…”

“What do you mean?” Linda asked confused. 

“Angels mate for life, doctor. Once we fall in love with someone that’s it. Ever,” Lucifer told her. 

“Oh. Wow,” she said wide-eyed. “He did ask me to marry him though.”

“A human commitment that has nothing on the real thing,” Lucifer told her. “Not that he doesn’t care about you. I’m sure he does, but for us real love is something huge.”

“I see. And why exactly are you worried about him finding out you’re telling me this?” Linda asked curiously. 

“I’m not worried about that part. I’m worried about him finding out that I’ve found a potential mate,” Lucifer told her. 

“Oh really,” Linda said amazed and a little worried. “So fast?”

“It’s only potential at the moment. The connection is there, but that’s all so far,” Lucifer told her. “Believe me, I’m aware that it’s not something to rush into. If he’d even be open to the idea of eternity at all. He’s thinking that part over now.” 

“Then he already knows all this?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Naturally. I’m not going to risk getting any deeper if it’s doomed to fail either way,” Lucifer told her. “I can’t let myself fall in love with him until I know.” 

“See, normally I would say something like sometimes that’s just a risk you have to take, but it’s really not in your case is it? I mean, if you only get one shot, you have to be a lot more careful. It makes me wonder how much bad advice I’ve given you over the years just because I didn’t know any better.” 

“Not as much as you might think,” Lucifer chuckled. “Besides, I knew when my unique situation made the advice bad and it still gave me more insight into the human emotions I was dealing with even then.” 

“Okay, then let me give you a little insight into human emotions now. Asking anyone for eternity is a big thing. Like huge even,” Linda told him. 

“I know,” Lucifer said. “If there’s one thing I know it’s the difficulties of being immortal and living among mortals. Having to watch everyone you care for grow old and die and go somewhere that you’ll never see them again. Giving up any opportunity of ever seeing heaven and being reunited with your loved ones. It’s a lot to ask and not to be taken lightly. And yes, I did point all those facts out to him for him to consider.” 

Linda chuckled. “Well it seems like you have all your ducks in a row there then.”

“Only thanks to your excellent help over the years,” Lucifer praised. 

Linda blushed slightly and asked, “So who is he then? Anyone I know?”

“Daniel actually,” Lucifer told her. When he saw the look on her face he grinned. “I know. I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s there.” 

She didn’t really have anything to say to that one, so she moved on. “So why is it you don’t want Amenadiel to know?” 

“Because if he knows I’m looking for a human mate, he will stop me by any means possible. If I complete a soul bond with a human, I can never return to Hell and we both know that Amenadiel will never accept that.” 

“He hasn’t tried to get you back to Hell for years though,” Linda pointed out. 

“No, he hasn’t. He’s letting me have my fun, but he still intends me to go back eventually. Or be forced back by Dad eventually. Taking that option off the table completely will not go over well,” Lucifer explained. 

“I think you’re underestimating him, but I can see why you feel that way,” Linda said with a nod. He would find out eventually anyway once the deed was done so she saw no need to argue with him over it. 

Lucifer snorted and shook his head. She had no idea. She’d known him for a few years. Lucifer knew his brother his whole life. He didn’t just drop things like that. Not for good. To Amenadiel’s mind their father wanted him in Hell and that’s where he should be. Just because he decided not to fight him on it anymore didn’t mean he accepted it. 

Dan knew that Lucifer was at his therapy appointment so just texted him the address for the crime scene so Lucifer could meet him there afterwards. When Lucifer got there, it was just like any other day, and Dan was a little bit confused. It was almost like last night didn’t even happen. He eventually came to the conclusion that Lucifer was giving him his space to think. At least he hoped so. 

A few nights later, he decided to go by the penthouse. He had a few more questions about this whole eternity thing that he wasn’t quite comfortable asking at work. He checked the club first and when he didn’t see Lucifer down there, he headed up the elevator. “Lucifer, you here?” he called as the doors opened only to stop in his tracks as he stepped in and both heard and saw what was going on in the bedroom. 

“Be with you…in a few moments,” Lucifer panted out, not pausing in his ministrations with the girl beneath him. He didn’t notice Dan turn and leave with tears in his eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

Once Lucifer was finished, he gave the girl one last kiss before he got up and grabbed his robe, heading out to look for Dan. He frowned when he didn’t find him and rushed the girl out as he got dressed and headed downstairs. Maybe he went down there to wait. When he didn’t see him there either, he pulled out his phone and called him, but it went to voicemail after one ring, meaning that he had intentionally hit ignore and Lucifer suddenly started getting worried. He headed down and took his car, heading to the apartment that Dan and Trixie were sharing with Maze. When he got there, he knocked on the door and Dan opened it, saw him and closed it again in his face. Lucifer huffed and knocked again. 

Dan took a few deep breaths before opening the door again and stepping out. If this turned into a fight, he didn’t want it to wake Trixie up, nor did he want Maze getting involved. “What do you want?” Dan asked heatedly. 

“I was going to ask you the same thing, though with quite a bit less aggression. Did you have a reason for coming by?” Lucifer asked confused. “And for leaving?” 

“Sorry, should I have called ahead so you could pencil me in?” Dan asked sarcastically, even more pissed at Lucifer’s confusion. “I can’t believe I actually let myself trust you for a while.” 

“Excuse me?” Lucifer asked now both hurt and confused. 

“You just want anyone you can get. You don’t give a shit about me. You made that perfectly clear, so why the hell are you even here?” 

“Did you want me to remain celibate while waiting for your answer?” Lucifer asked, suddenly starting to realize what the problem might be. 

“Yes,” Dan snapped angrily. 

“Okay then,” Lucifer easily agreed. 

“Wait…what?” Dan asked, his anger stopping in its tracks. 

“That’s all you had to say,” Lucifer told him. “I was waiting for an answer from you as to whether we’re together or not. If you need that gesture of good faith from me in the process then you have it, because I do care about you. I just ask you to please understand that I can’t risk getting any closer to you without knowing that there is a chance,” Lucifer said gently. 

“I…” Dan trailed off, realizing that he may have overreacted a bit. Lucifer was right. There had been no promises made, nothing had been defined. Sure, he thought they were on the same page, but clearly it was a misunderstanding. He was expecting human reactions from someone who wasn’t human. “I’m sorry. I should have told you what I wanted rather than just expecting you to know.”

“And I should have made sure that my understanding of the situation was correct,” Lucifer admitted in return. “Since that unpleasantness is now behind us, was there a reason you stopped by?” 

“Yeah, actually. I had a few more questions about the whole eternity thing, if you don’t mind?” Dan asked sheepishly. The easy way that Lucifer agreed to stop seeing other people the moment it was mentioned made him feel ridiculous for making such a big deal out of it. Of course, Lucifer wouldn’t want to get too close to him without knowing if he could handle a relationship. If Lucifer actually managed to fall in love with him, then it was all over. He turned to sit on the steps as he said, “Sorry. I would invite you in, but Maze is watching some slasher movie and I know you didn’t want anyone to know about this.”

“Not a problem. To either. Ask away,” Lucifer said sitting next to him. 

“Well, my status was rather vague when you mentioned it before. I mean, it was implied that I would live forever, I think, but how so? I mean, would I just stop aging? Would I be invulnerable like you? Would I get any powers or anything? What would happen if I did die?” 

“You’re right. I could have been a little clearer on that. I do apologize. As I mentioned, I’ve never tried to explain this before. You would stop aging where you are now and perhaps even revert slightly. At your age it shouldn’t be a suspicious amount and should be able to be explained away by a new skin care regimen or extra gym time or something of the like. You would share my invulnerability and would only be able to be wounded by hell-forged or divine means, but neither of us would be able to die that way since we would be bound to this plane of existence by our bond, though being killed would likely hurt quite a bit as we healed. As far as the powers, I’m not sure. No celestial has ever bound themselves to a human before, so it’s difficult to say if there will be any bleedover from that.” 

“Okay, so don’t count on powers, but it’s possible. Got it,” Dan said with a nod. “What about when people notice I’m not aging? Or you’re not aging at that?”

Lucifer chuckled. “It depends on how suspicious it is. For example, if it’s only the people at the precinct who notice and already know about me, it doesn’t really need to be explained. I have no intention of keeping things secret should it get that far once the deed is done, after all. If we do need to move on, that’s why I keep shadier contacts who can create new identities, so we can move somewhere else for a while and come back to LA as new people or just keep moving if you’d rather. As much as I enjoy LA, I can be just as happy elsewhere.” 

“And if I’m good with the idea of eternity someday and we’re dating…would that be secret too?” Dan asked worriedly, not liking that idea at all. 

“Not unless you want it to be,” Lucifer told him. “I have no problem with people knowing that we’re dating. Just the potential mating has to be kept under wraps.” 

“Okay, good,” Dan said relieved. “Can I ask…since you were still looking and all…what would have happened if you’d found another connection and then I said I was good with it?” 

“That was highly unlikely,” Lucifer told him. When he saw that Dan wasn’t going to let it go at that, he gave a better answer. “Then I would have had a decision to make. One that you would most likely have come out ahead on.” 

“Most likely?” Dan asked hurt. 

“When dealing with hypotheticals nothing is definite,” Lucifer pointed out. “I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be my choice, but without knowing the exact situation I couldn’t say with complete certainty.” 

“Yeah, okay. I get that,” Dan said with a sigh. It was his fault for asking the question in the first place. First rule he needed to remember when dealing with Lucifer. Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to. 

“Did you have any other questions?” Lucifer asked. 

“Not right now, no,” Dan shook his head. 

“If you do, feel free to call or stop by or anything,” Lucifer said before reaching a hand to Dan’s cheek and turning him slightly to press a long gentle kiss to his lips. “Goodnight, Daniel.” 

“Goodnight, Lucifer,” Dan said breathlessly watching him walk away. He wanted this so badly, but he had to decide if he could live with it or not. It would be beyond unfair to Lucifer for him to change his mind later. Once it was too late. He sat out there thinking for a while before he got up and headed back inside, going to his room to do some more thinking. 

It would mean giving up any chance of ever seeing Heaven, but who said he would go to heaven anyway? He had a lot of crap in his life to feel guilty about and letting go of that was easier said than done. Still, there was a chance. Did he really want to give up on that? Could he really handle watching everyone he loved die, knowing that he would never see them again? He’d lived most of his life with the belief that he wouldn’t anyway. That death was the end, but now that he knew differently did it change things? And it wouldn’t be everyone he loved that died. Lucifer would still be with him. For the rest of time. 

That was the biggest reason he was even considering it. The idea of not having to worry about growing apart or falling out of love. Having someone that you could always count on, no matter what. That was intoxicating. What more could anyone ask for? Sure things might get boring from time to time, but they would never stay that way with Lucifer around. He was sure that even if he wanted to spice things up in the bedroom, Lucifer would be game for that too. Unless something in the bonding prevented it, of course. That would be a question to ask, but not until the time came. It didn’t have any bearing on whether he wanted eternity or not. He still hadn’t come to a conclusion by the time he fell asleep, but he was definitely leaning towards accepting.


	12. Chapter 12

Within the next few days, Dan had a tentative decision, but this was too important not to be completely positive, so he took a little extra time to consider it before going to Lucifer. He had noticed the searching looks from the devil for the last few days, but Lucifer hadn’t said anything to hurry him up, and Dan was grateful for that. Especially since he’d agreed not to be with anyone else in the meantime. It meant that he was serious about this at the very least. Friday night he asked Maze if she could stay with Trixie for the night and at least part of the next day, and she agreed. He waited until Trixie went to bed though before he headed out. When Lucifer wasn’t downstairs again, he went to the elevator, desperately hoping it wasn’t going to end up like last time. Lucifer didn’t break his word though. He knew that. It was just the similarity to his last visit that was putting him on edge. 

Dan heard the music even before the elevator doors opened and couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Lucifer, sleeves rolled up, shirt half unbuttoned, cigarette burning in the ashtray and glass of scotch sitting next to it. Dan had quit smoking quite a while ago, but if he was going to be with a smoker, he might as well. It wasn’t as if Chloe was around to tell him off anymore after all. He stepped over and grabbed the cigarette to take a drag, knowing that Lucifer wouldn’t mind. The devil just chuckled as he stopped playing and joked, “Would you like some of my drink too or do you want your own?” Dan grinned and leaned over and kissed him firmly before cheekily downing the last bit of Lucifer’s drink before going to get him a refill and a glass for himself. It wasn’t likely that he’d be driving home tonight anyway. 

“So I have one more question,” Dan said, sitting down on the couch that Lucifer was already moving towards. 

“By all means. Ask away,” Lucifer said cheerfully, spirits successfully lifted by the fun. 

“You said that we’d be bound to the Earth. What happens if one day this world ends?” 

Lucifer blinked in surprise for a moment. “That’s a very good question, and I have no bloody idea,” he said amusedly. “Though what I meant was that we are bound to this dimension, not this world specifically, so perhaps by then there will be other options. Other worlds that we can travel to and such.” 

Dan laughed and nodded. “Okay. Fair enough. That was more of a curiosity than anything else. It doesn’t affect my decision anyway.” 

“So you’ve made a decision then?” Lucifer asked, trying to hide the sudden bout of nerves he was experiencing. 

“Yeah. I have. If we get that far, I can deal with eternity,” Dan told him, unable to resist returning the blossoming smile on Lucifer’s face. 

“You’re certain? You’ve considered everything?” Lucifer asked hopefully, wanting to be sure. 

“I have. I’ll miss Trix and probably a lot of other people and never seeing my family again in Heaven will be tough, but if we get that far then I’ll have a love that most people could only dream of and that will be enough. As long as I have you by my side, I’ll be able to move on and be happy,” Dan told him. 

Lucifer reached out a hand to Dan’s cheek with tears in his eyes, and quickly closed the distance between them with a deep loving kiss that Dan gladly returned. When it broke, Lucifer leaned his forehead against Dan’s breathing heavily. “There is one more thing though before we continue this further,” he said, more than a little nervous about the step he was going to take. 

Dan resisted the urge to sigh in irritation. How many more tests was he going to have? “What is it?” 

“You remember me mentioning my devil form yes?” Lucifer asked and Dan nodded. Lucifer sat back and let his face fade into it. “Can you accept me like this?” 

Dan blinked in surprise for a moment, but as Lucifer started to turn away, Dan reached a hand out to his cheek and turned him back, meeting the red eyes with his own. “Absolutely,” he said sincerely, leaning forward to press another kiss to the scarred red lips, using Lucifer’s gasp to deepen it. 

“Do you have to be home tonight?” Lucifer whispered as they separated, just barely, and his face faded back to normal. 

“No. Maze is gonna stay with Trix for tonight and at least part of tomorrow,” Dan whispered back with a smile.

“Good. Because I don’t plan on letting you go tonight,” Lucifer said with a grin, pulling him to his feet and into another kiss as they headed for the bedroom. Two rounds later and they were in the shower for round three and then back to the bed, though there was no round four as Dan tapped out after the third. Lucifer pulled Dan into his arms though, and made good on his promise not to let him go. “Since I completely understand your desire not to uproot the urchin with everything else going on, we can stay at your apartment in the future,” Lucifer said after a while, intentionally being cryptic with his wording so that Dan didn’t feel pressured into anything. 

“Stay there how?” Dan asked, not letting him get away with being cryptic though. 

Lucifer sighed and lifted Dan’s chin with his hand. “You set the pace here, darling. I have no intention of holding anything back,” he said earnestly. 

Dan smiled brightly and nodded, kissing Lucifer softly to give himself a moment to think. When it ended, he had come to a decision. “There’s plenty of room in the closet, and I can clean out a drawer. I don’t think I’m ready to officially live together, but unofficially…” 

Lucifer pulled him tighter to his side with a happy smile. “That’s perfectly fine, love. I’ll still need to spend some time here during the days and evenings anyway to take care of the club, so it won’t be any hardship to take anything else as I need it. I do hope you don’t mind if I purchase a digital piano to keep there though. I know a full piano won’t fit.” 

“What’s a digital piano?” Dan asked.

“It takes up roughly the same amount of space as a keyboard and stand but is a solid design and has more of a piano sound,” Lucifer explained. 

“Then yeah. That works,” Dan agreed. “And also remember you won’t be able to sleep naked there with Trix in the house.” 

“I’m aware,” Lucifer assured him. “I can live with that.” They were asleep not long after. The next morning, Lucifer cooked a nice breakfast for them both and while they were eating, brought up the subject again. “You are still comfortable with what we spoke of last night, yes?”

“Yeah. Absolutely,” Dan assured him, understanding why he was asking. Sleeping on it may have changed things, but it didn’t. It just made him even more sure. They were shooting for forever here. What was spending the nights together compared to that? 

Lucifer grinned and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “In that case, I’ll go shopping for the piano after breakfast and then get some clothes together and head over?” 

“That sounds perfect,” Dan said happily and he headed home after breakfast to let Trixie and Maze know that Lucifer would be staying there for a while, possibly permanently. 

“So once again, I’m stuck living with Lucifer,” Maze said irritated, crossing her arms. “After all that work it took me to get away from him.”

“I’m sorry Maze,” Dan said with a wince. “I should have talked to you first.” 

She just waved him off. “Whatever. I’ll deal. For now, at least,” she told him. If it did become permanent she was out though. She doubted it would though. Lucifer was just enjoying himself but he wouldn’t dare let himself actually fall in love with a human. That opinion faltered a bit when Lucifer arrived a few moments later at the same time as a delivery truck bringing a digital piano. 

“Is there any place in particular you would like this, darling?” Lucifer asked Dan. 

“Wherever is good,” Dan told him. 

“Let’s try it in the living room for now then,” Lucifer decided motioning the delivery guy over to the back corner. “We can always move it to the bedroom if it becomes a problem.” 

Once that was set up, Lucifer headed back down to the car to get his garment bags with his suits and the duffel bag with his sleep pants, robes, the books from Lux that he could work on here, and a book for pleasure reading. Maze followed him down and stopped him before he got to the car though. “What are you playing at, Lucifer?” she asked dangerously. 

“Whatever do you mean?” Lucifer asked with a smirk. 

“If you think moving in on my life like this is going to get me back by your side…”

“That’s not what this is at all, Mazikeen,” Lucifer said firmly. “You being here was not a consideration. I want to spend more time with Daniel. He doesn’t want to uproot his offspring. This was the solution. I have no intention of interfering with your life in the slightest.” 

“You better not,” she warned, twisting one of her blades in his direction before heading back up the stairs and leaving him to carry everything himself. He was just glad that he’d sent a few bottles of scotch with Dan earlier or he would have to make two trips to keep them from breaking.


	13. Chapter 13

Lucifer went to put his clothes away and put the books in the drawer in his nightstand before heading back downstairs. He was trapped in a hug by the child as Maze huffed and stormed out. Once he extricated himself from the child and she was safely settled in front of the television again, Dan asked Lucifer softly, “What’s Maze’s problem with you?” 

“That’s a rather long and complicated story, but I’ll give you the short version for now. You’re aware that I’m her king yes?” 

“I know that you were in Hell. Are you still? Even up here?” 

“That’s more of a grey area really. I could still take control if I wished, but I don’t. Technically, since she’s a demon, I’m always her king, but I don’t enforce it up here,” Lucifer explained. “But in Hell, and even for quite a while after we got here, she was my right hand. My assistant, assassin, enforcer, bodyguard, everything. When I decided to make a home here instead of return to Hell she was not happy, and left my service. Said that if we were going to stay here then she was going to make her own life away from me.”

“And now here you are,” Dan sighed, understanding a little more now. 

“Yes. Here I am. And since she can’t know about the potential bonding, she can’t know how serious we are…”

“So it looks to her like you’re just trying to get close to her and keep an eye on her,” Dan nodded. “I know this isn’t your fault, but please do what you can to make things work with her. Trixie would be devastated if she lost Maze too right after losing her mother.” 

“Which is likely the only reason that Maze is still here,” Lucifer pointed out before promising, “I give you my word that I will do everything I safely can to keep the situation under control.”

“Safely can?” Dan asked curiously. 

“Her knowing too much about our intentions could see all of us killed. That is a risk I won’t take.”

“Right. Gotcha,” Dan agreed. That was too much of a risk. “What if she figures it out though? I mean, she’s going to be around us quite a bit.” 

“You make a good point. I suppose we will simply have to play that by ear if it should happen,” Lucifer told him. “If it helps, I don’t believe that she would intentionally cause harm to us, if nothing else than for the child’s sake.” He wasn’t ruling out extortion though. Maze was very good at that. 

Unfortunately, keeping the secret was easier said than done. It didn’t even make it the day. Over dinner that night Trixie asked, “Are you still taking me to the arcade tomorrow Daddy? Can Lucifer come?” 

Dan’s eyes widened a bit, but that was nothing compared to the almost panic in Lucifer’s expression and Maze was just amused. “Of course I’ll still take you baby, but Lucifer…”

“Will come as well,” Lucifer cut in, forcing down his panic at the idea. 

Maze and Dan both dropped their forks as they gaped at him. Neither of them had a chance to say anything though as Trixie was out of her seat with a cheer and hugging him. “You’ll really come? You promise?” 

“Yes, urchin. I promise I will go with you,” Lucifer told her. “But I promise nothing but my presence.” 

Trixie grinned and hugged him tighter for a moment before letting go and getting back to her seat to finish eating which was the cue for Maze to speak. “Okay this I gotta see. Count me in too squirt.” 

Dan resisted the urge to sigh at the idea of what he was signed up for. Taking the devil and a demon to an arcade couldn’t end well. For the arcade or his blood pressure. Once they finished eating, Trixie dragooned them all into watching a movie. Lucifer managed to get out of at least part of it by offering to clean up and fully intended to take his time doing so. As Dan and Trixie went to get the movie started, Maze hung back with him. “What’s the deal Lucifer?” she asked in irritation. “Trixie is /my/ friend.” 

Lucifer sighed. He should have expected this. Being in Daniel’s life meant being in the child’s as well and since Maze was more than a little protective of the urchin, it was always going to come to a confrontation. “I promise you, Mazikeen. This has nothing to do with you.”

“You’re staying in my house, moving in on my family and you say that this has nothing to do with me?” she asked incredulously, blade twirling in her hand. 

Lucifer winced, seeing the temper brewing in her, and instinctively took a step back. “If I am to be with Daniel, then I will need to get used to being with the child as well. That’s all this is,” he assured her. 

Maze stopped dead in her tracks, blade stopping its motion. “You’re going to fall in love with him?!” she asked in disbelief. 

Lucifer knew that he was backed into a corner now. He knew it was a risk since his last comment, but he had hoped that she wouldn’t pick up on that. “That’s the hope, yes,” Lucifer admitted. It wasn’t as though he could lie. 

“But…does he have any idea what that even means?” 

“He does. We’ve discussed it and he’s agreed to all that it entails,” Lucifer told her. “But Mazikeen, if people found out what we were doing here…they would stop at nothing to prevent it. Including killing us all.”

“People like your brother…and the rest of your family,” Maze realized, putting her blade away. 

“Precisely,” Lucifer nodded. “Which means that /no one/ can know. There’s too much risk of someone saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” she accused. 

“I was going to after it was done,” Lucifer told her. “I didn’t want to keep it from you, Maze, but the danger…” 

“And it’s my /job/ to protect you from that danger,” she snapped. 

“No, that /was/ your job,” Lucifer pointed out. “You quit, remember? After giving my brother the information he needed to try and force me back to Hell.” 

Maze slammed a plate on the counter so hard that it broke before storming out of the house. Lucifer sighed heavily and went to clean it up. Dan came in a moment later. “What was that?” 

“A disaster is what that was,” Lucifer said wearily. He could only hope that she kept her silence and that she would be back. He told Dan what had happened, and he could see the worry on Dan’s face as well. 

Lucifer finished cleaning up and joined Dan and Trixie for the movie and then another one before the child went to bed, and Maze still wasn’t back. When Dan suggested that they go to bed too, Lucifer shook his head. “I’m going to wait up for Maze.”

“Are you sure she’ll come back?” 

“Not positive, no, but she did tell the child that she would accompany us to the arcade tomorrow and I don’t believe that she would go back on that promise,” Lucifer told him. 

“Okay, then I’ll wait up with you,” Dan offered. 

“No, darling. You need your sleep. Maze and I can function with much less sleep. I promise I will fill you in in the morning,” Lucifer assured him. 

“Okay, but only if you promise to wake me up if she told anyone so we can talk about it,” Dan offered a compromise.

“Very well,” Lucifer agreed, pulling Dan into a long loving kiss before shooing him off to bed. Lucifer went over to the piano and turned the volume on low before he started to play. It always helped settle his mind and emotions. 

It was almost three am when Maze breezed back in and by then Lucifer had abandoned the piano and was reading a book. “Maze, can we talk?” he asked when he realized that she hadn’t noticed him. Thankfully he never let his reflexes get rusty because he was able to pluck the blade out of the air before it took his eye out. 

Maze huffed and grabbed the blade back from him before plopping on the couch. “I didn’t spill your secret if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not,” Lucifer told her. “I do trust you Maze. More than I do most people.” 

“Then why keep it from me?” she asked hurt. 

“Because the more people who know a secret, the greater the risk of it getting out,” Lucifer told her. “While I don’t necessarily mind risking my own life, I couldn’t risk Daniel’s or even Beatrice’s.”

“And you don’t think I can keep a secret?” Maze asked incredulously. 

“I think that there are certain people,” his eyes flicked upwards, “that it’s all but impossible to keep a secret from and you never know when they are listening.”

Maze deflated at that and nodded. She couldn’t exactly dispute that much. “Okay. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.” 

“Thank you, Mazikeen,” Lucifer said relieved. “Now we should both get some sleep before we are dragged to the miscreant laden cesspit in the morning.”

Maze laughed and shook her head. “I still can’t wait to see this,” she said amusedly as she got up and headed to bed.


	14. Chapter 14

Lucifer headed upstairs and slid into bed as gently as he could, but Dan was a light sleeper. He rolled over and draped his arm over Lucifer’s stomach, using his shoulder as a pillow. “All good?” he asked. 

“Yes, darling. She and I have come to an understanding and all is well,” Lucifer said with a happy smile as he pulled Dan closer. 

“Good,” Dan slurred as he drifted back to sleep with a muttered, “love you.”

Lucifer forced himself not to outwardly react at those words that he wasn’t nearly ready to return yet, but inside he was a jumble of scared, hopeful, and happy. Eventually he just smiled and kissed Dan’s head before going to sleep himself. 

The next morning, Dan slipped out of bed without waking Lucifer up, and went to make waffles for breakfast. He set aside plates for Lucifer and Maze, but would let them sleep a little longer and he and Trixie ate together. She was bouncing off the walls in excitement, but she knew that they wouldn’t be leaving for a few hours. Dan went to wake Lucifer up around ten while Trixie went to get Maze. He grinned at the sight of the sleeping devil and decided to wake him up with a kiss. Once he could tell that Lucifer was awake he started pulling back but Lucifer followed all the way to propped up on his elbows. He pouted once Dan got too far away for him to follow. Dan chuckled and gave him one more quick kiss. “I thought you’d want to be up in time to grab something to eat before we left. I saved you some waffles.” 

“Yes, best to have a fortifying breakfast before the horrors of the day,” Lucifer said scrunching up his nose at the thought of what was coming. 

Dan laughed. “You know you didn’t have to agree to come, right?” 

Lucifer got out of bed and reached out to Dan’s cheek. “I told you I wasn’t going to hold anything back here. That means being with your offspring as well.” 

Dan leaned into the touch with a bright smile as he said, “I appreciate that more than you know, Lucifer. That doesn’t mean you had to start with something so big though. We could have worked up to it at least.” 

Lucifer chuckled. “You know me, darling. I don’t do anything halfway.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Dan grinned. “Either way, it’s too late now. You promised, after all.” 

“That I did, so let’s go make good on that promise,” Lucifer said moving to the closet to get dressed. 

By the time they got downstairs, Maze was halfway finished eating and Lucifer grabbed his plate to join her. They were out the door half an hour later. Once they stepped inside the arcade, Lucifer just froze in horror at the sight, making Maze burst into laughter, and even Dan and Trixie were barely holding it in. Trixie took control of the situation though and grabbed Lucifer’s hand. “Come on. There’s a game I think you’ll really like,” she said as she dragged him into the throng. 

Lucifer allowed her to drag him but looked back pleadingly to Dan and Maze. “Should we rescue him?” Dan asked Maze amusedly. 

“No way,” Maze replied still laughing as she followed at a distance. 

Trixie dragged Lucifer to a pinball game with a devil theme. “Look! It’s you. Kinda,” Trixie said pointing at the graphics on the board. 

Lucifer scowled at it. “I’ll have you know that I am /not/ some goat hybrid, thank you very much.” 

Trixie giggled and rolled her eyes. “I know, but it’s still funny.” 

“Glad you think so,” he grumbled sarcastically before saying a little louder. “How do you play this game?” She put some tokens in and showed him how to send the ball up and use the levers to hit it around. After she lost the first ball she let him try just as Dan and Maze walked up. “This isn’t so difficult,” Lucifer said keeping the ball in play with ease until someone bumped into him and he lost it. When he played the last ball, he paid more attention to what was going on around him so as not to lose again. 

“Wow, you’ve almost got the high score beat,” Trixie said bouncing excitedly as the numbers went higher and higher. 

“Wanna bet,” Maze smirked as she kicked the back of his knees making him lose. He turned to glare at her and she grinned. “You didn’t think I would let you beat my score did you?” 

It was Lucifer’s turn to smirk now. “I suppose it’s a good thing I got a free ball then isn’t it.” He launched the ball and managed to beat her score just barely, as he dodged her laughing before she got him good enough to make him lose it. 

The next stop was skeeball, which almost came to blows between Lucifer and Maze…again…before Dan intervened and steered them all towards less competitive games. Trixie just thought it was hilarious. 

Lucifer decided that sticking close to Dan and Maze was the best way to make it through the day and did just that. Maze left after they took a break for lunch though. She’d gotten what she wanted and now that Lucifer seemed more at ease, her fun was over. Unfortunately, with her gone, Lucifer had less of a buffer from the other children, but managed to endure. As they were getting ready to leave, Trixie went to cash in her tickets. As the man at the counter counted them, Lucifer saw Trixie eyeing a stuffed pony that was bigger than her. When he gave them the total, it was still far short for the pony though, so Lucifer pulled out his wallet and asked, “How much for that?” 

“I’m sorry, sir, but we can only take tickets for the prizes,” he told him. 

“I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement,” Lucifer drawled charmingly, pulling out a wad of cash that made the man’s eyes go wide. 

“I-I could be fired…” he said, clearly wanting to make a deal, but worried about it. 

“Luc…” Dan said warningly. He didn’t want the kid to get fired, nor for Trixie to think it was okay to bribe people.

Lucifer sighed. “Very well then. Wait here, urchin,” Lucifer told her as he went to the other counter and bought a big bucket of tokens, heading to the roulette type game that gave nothing but tickets. 

Dan rolled his eyes and grabbed Trixie’s current tickets and headed over, Trixie hot on his heels. “Can I play too?” she asked eyeing the identical machine next to Lucifer’s. 

“Of course, child. Both of you join in. That way it will go quicker,” Lucifer told her and the three of them played for another half hour before the tokens were gone and the armload of tickets was taken to the counter. 

“What if that’s still not enough?” Dan whispered to Lucifer as they were being counted. 

“Then we keep going until it is,” Lucifer whispered back, making Dan roll his eyes again, but he was warmed by the lengths that Lucifer would go to for Trixie all the same. He knew that he might have to put his foot down if it went too far, but there was no harm in a giant stuffed pony. 

It ended up being enough with quite a bit left over that got Trixie a few more prizes as well and she rewarded Lucifer with the biggest hug to date before she grabbed her giant pony and started dragging it out. “Why don’t you let me carry this for now, baby. We don’t want it to get dirty in the parking lot,” Dan suggested. She couldn’t even lift it off the ground. She nodded and handed it over. Even Dan was barely tall enough to get it off the ground, and he found himself wondering if it would even fit in the car. It did. Barely. And Trixie had to sit up front between him and Lucifer because the thing took up the entire back seat and that was with it’s legs bent underneath and it’s head twisted around so that it was hanging over top of Trixie’s head. 

With their unexpected passenger taking up the backseat not to mention how much later it was than he intended, Dan decided against stopping at a restaurant for dinner and just hit a drive thru on the way home instead. While they wrangled the beast into the house, Maze burst into laughter. “I should have known.” Lucifer raised a curious eyebrow at her and she told him. “Trix has been eyeing that thing for a while but no one would let me intimidate the guy into giving it to her. How’d you get it?” 

“I was prevented from bribing him for it, so I simply bought enough tokens to get enough tickets for it,” Lucifer told her. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t get her a real pony,” Maze laughed. 

“Oh I wish it was a real pony!” Trixie exclaimed. 

“Would you like a real pony, urchin?” Lucifer asked her. 

“No!” Dan said quickly. “No real ponies.” Lucifer and Trixie both pouted at that sending Maze into even more hysterical laughter.


	15. Chapter 15

Everyone at the precinct was happy for them being together, even if they did get a lecture from the lieutenant about it not affecting the job. She didn’t split them up though, thankfully. Ella in particular was over the moon and was the only one to ask the big question about angelic emotions, but Lucifer just brushed the question off with a non-answer type answer. The job went much the same as always with a little extra touching and the occasional stolen kiss thrown in of course. 

Home life was also going well. Lucifer spent a couple evenings a week at Lux to keep an eye on things and make sure the penthouse stayed in good condition. He also took those opportunities to change out the clothes and books he kept at Dan’s and pick up the receipts for the accounting for the club. He and Dan also took an extra night a week for a date night, usually at Lux, but sometimes elsewhere, while Maze kept Trixie. 

It was two months before the big words slipped from Dan when he was awake. He had been cuddling up to Lucifer while they both tried to catch their breath after sex and he just breathed out, “I love you.” When he realized what he’d said, his eyes went wide and he started to pull away, but Lucifer’s arm just tightened around him. “I don’t expect you to…to say anything…I mean…I know it’s different for you…I just…”

Lucifer leaned over and silenced him with a warm loving kiss. “It’s okay, Daniel. You know how much I care for you and I don’t want you to feel like you have to hold back with me. You can always tell me anything. Just because I’m not there yet doesn’t mean I’m going to run,” he assured him. He’d had plenty of time since that mostly asleep slip of the tongue to plan his response for this eventuality. He knew that what Dan felt for him now was barely a shadow of what Lucifer would hopefully come to feel for him in time. If they completed the bond, he would understand the difference. He would have the same emotional capacity as Lucifer then, but until then, he understood the human limitations on the matter. 

“Okay,” Dan let out a relieved breath. “Good. Because I do love you,” he said with a smile, trying the words out again on purpose, getting a warm smile and a soft kiss from Lucifer in return. “Maybe we could make this living together thing official too. If you wanted.”

“I would like that very much,” Lucifer said happily. “Though I plan to leave most of my books and artifacts at the penthouse. Most of them are irreplaceable and I know that children tend to have accidents.” 

“Yeah. I get that,” Dan told him. “So you’re keeping the penthouse then?” 

“Of course,” Lucifer told him. “It is attached to the club after all, and perhaps one day, when the child is grown, assuming all goes well, we may move back there.” 

Dan relaxed a great deal and cuddled back against Lucifer’s side. He could understand that. His first thought was that he was keeping it as an escape in case it was needed, but his explanation made sense. He knew how much Lucifer loved the penthouse and the club. 

That weekend, Lucifer moved over the rest of his clothes and some of his less valuable books and artifacts. He still went through the penthouse and spent an hour or so there a few times a week when he was checking on the club, occasionally taking one of the more valuable books to read and then returning it when he was finished. He did miss the place, particularly the view from the balcony and the hot tub, but Dan meant more to him and the penthouse wasn’t fit for a child. 

Amenadiel had been spending a lot more time with Linda since she was almost ready to give birth when he got a summons from his father and quickly headed up to heaven. They had spoken more than once since he got his wings back, mostly about keeping an eye on Lucifer, but this was the first time he had actually been summoned. When he arrived, he found his father sitting on his throne looking at him sternly. “You still believe your brother will return to Hell on his own?” God asked him. 

“Yes. I do. He has tired of the partying and is trying a human relationship. Once he tires of that as well, he won’t have much left,” Amenadiel told him. 

“I seem to remember you assuring me of the same thing after my plan for Chloe Decker to turn on him failed,” God pointed out. 

“I didn’t anticipate him getting over that so easily, I admit, but I’m sure…”

“I have to wonder, Amenadiel. Are you truly blind or are you working with him?” God cut him off. 

“I would never work against you father,” Amenadiel assured him confusedly. 

“Then you are unaware that your brother intends to form a soul bond with the human he’s been courting?” 

“What? Lucifer would never…he hates commitment father and an eternal commitment…no…he couldn’t…”

God huffed and sat back, trusting his eldest son’s assurances of innocence. “You have always had a habit of underestimating how far your brother will go to get what he wants.” 

“But to tie himself to a human forever…” Amenadiel started disgustedly. 

“Would prevent him from ever returning to Hell,” God pointed out. When he saw that Amenadiel got it, he said, “You will end this relationship by any means necessary. You will prevent this bonding and we will take a more active role in getting your brother back where he belongs.”

“Yes, Father,” Amenadiel said bowing his head. It would be so much easier if they could just grab him and chuck him back into Hell, but his promise to Lucifer prevented that. For all of them. He couldn’t be forced back to Hell, but there was nothing that said that they couldn’t convince him to go back. Once they did, his father had promised that he would ensure that he couldn’t leave again. 

Amenadiel headed back to Earth and started watching Dan and Lucifer more closely, working on a plan. He tried to wheedle information from Linda about what they were planning and get a timetable, but she became too suspicious and told him little. Unfortunately for him, when Raphael came to check on his progress a week later, he didn’t realize that she had come home early and overheard their conversation just as his plan was about to be put into motion. Linda hid until she heard both Amenadiel and the other angel she didn’t know fly away before she let out a heavy breath. This wasn’t good. What could she do? 

Amenadiel had tried to talk Lucifer out of continuing this relationship more than once over the course of the week without letting on that he knew what he was doing of course. The last thing he wanted was to spur Lucifer into speeding up the timetable. His brother just seemed to dig his heels in more though, so it was time for a desperate play. He knew enough about Lucifer’s patterns to know that he would be at Lux tonight and knew exactly when he would be in the penthouse as well, so he flew to Dan’s apartment and knocked on the door. Dan, of course, invited him in, so Amenadiel made his move. “I’ve agonized for weeks over telling you this, breaking a promise to my brother, but I can’t keep quiet anymore. You deserve to know.”

“I deserve to know what?” Dan asked confused. 

“The evenings he spends at Lux, he isn’t alone,” Amenadiel said gravely forcing false sympathy into his voice. 

“The club is usually full of people,” Dan said, not believing what Amenadiel was implying. 

“You know he spends quite a bit of time in the penthouse as well,” Amenadiel told him. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. I wish I didn’t have to, and I don’t blame you for not believing me. Lucifer has always been good at manipulating people to think the best of him. Go see for yourself.” 

“Goodbye Amenadiel,” Dan said coldly, opening the door in blatant dismissal. 

Amenadiel walked out, hoping that this worked. Once the door closed behind him, he went to Lux, ready to put the next part of the plan into effect if Dan showed up. Either way it would drive a wedge between them, but this way would put the bigger wedge. If this didn’t work, the next step would be to remove Dan from the picture permanently, but Amenadiel hoped it didn’t come to that. He actually liked Dan, not to mention what it would do to Beatrice to lose both of her parents. 

When Amenadiel saw Dan walk in about half an hour later, he looked at his watch. Just in time. Lucifer would still be in the penthouse for a while. He went to the woman that he’d paid for this and let her know it was time before he went to delay Dan with conversation for a few minutes. The timing for this would be crucial. He knew what his honor meant to his brother and he wouldn’t likely play along, so Dan needed to be up there before he got her dressed and out the door, but after she was in place.


	16. Chapter 16

It didn’t take long for Linda to come to the conclusion that there was only one thing she could do about this. She grabbed her phone and called Lucifer. “Doctor. So nice to hear from you,” Lucifer answered cheerfully as he lounged on the balcony. 

“I’m sorry, Lucifer. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you about Amenadiel,” she said frantically. 

“What do you mean?” Lucifer asked suddenly very worried. 

“He found out. Not from me. I swear. I think from your father from what I could understand of the conversation. He’s trying to split you and Dan up. I don’t know what he’s doing, but there was something about drastic measures if he didn’t succeed soon,” Linda told him. 

“Damnit,” Lucifer said, slamming his fist down on the table and caving the metal in. “This isn’t good.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just had to warn you. Please be careful,” she told him. 

“Listen, Doctor, I’m about to have to take drastic measures of my own. Will you get with Maze and figure out the care of Beatrice for a few days? I don’t dare say more than that with a certain deity potentially listening…”

“I understand, Lucifer. Say no more. I’ll take care of it. And her,” Linda promised. She just hoped she didn’t end up going into labor and having to break her promise. She still had three weeks until her due date at least. 

“Thank you,” Lucifer said relieved before being distracted by the elevator and raising his eyebrow at the woman who stepped out, already stripping off her clothes. “And I need to go. I do believe my brother’s gift has arrived,” he said distastefully before hanging up and heading in from the balcony. 

Lucifer had just grabbed her shoulders to steer her back towards the elevator, when the doors opened again and Dan stepped out. The look on his face told Lucifer that this was exactly his brother’s plan. He had timed things perfectly. He had wondered what he’d hoped to achieve by sending a woman that Lucifer would obviously send away, but now he got it and he needed to do damage control. As Dan turned to press the button for the elevator again to go back down, Lucifer pushed the girl onto the couch and rushed over, wrapping his arms around Dan and taking flight. He couldn’t do this here. 

Lucifer used his translocation ability rather than technical flight, partially because there was too much risk of dropping Dan as he struggled, and partially due to the time factor. He wasn’t going to give his father a chance to shoot them out of the sky nor give Dan more time to get angry and upset. “What the Hell, Lucifer?!” Dan said heatedly as he shoved Lucifer away when they landed in a dark forest. 

“I assure you, love, that wasn’t what it looked like,” Lucifer told him. 

“Amenadiel said that you weren’t alone. That you were sleeping around when you were spending time at the penthouse,” Dan said accusatorily. 

“Did you truly believe that I would do that to you?” Lucifer asked hurt. If he did, then Amenadiel might just get his wish after all. 

“No. Not really. But he seemed so sure and then I saw that…” Dan took a deep breath for calm. “Tell me he was lying to me, Lucifer, and I’ll believe you. I know you don’t lie.”

“He was lying to you, Daniel,” Lucifer assured him. At least he still had that much trust. He could work with that at least. “Look at me,” Lucifer said, holding out his arms. “Do I look like someone that was about to or just did have sex with someone?” 

Dan sighed and shook his head. Lucifer was fully clothed, not rumpled at all and not a hair out of place. If it had gotten far enough for her to be naked he would at the very least be half-naked himself. “You’re right. I know. I shouldn’t have let him get in my head like that, but I didn’t see why he would…”

“Do you remember back when we first started this? I told you that if Amenadiel found out that he would stop at nothing to prevent it,” Lucifer reminded him. 

“You’re saying he found out?” Dan asked worriedly. 

“Yes. Or more like my father found out and sent Amenadiel to do his dirty work as usual.” Lucifer started pacing running a hand through his hair. 

To give himself time to think, Dan changed the subject somewhat. At least for a minute. “Where are we?” he asked. “And is the whole creepy haunted forest vibe intentional?” he added with a tense chuckle. 

“We’re in the center of what is currently known as Wytchwood. It’s the only place in the world that is blind to my father thanks to some ancient protection ritual done by a group of druids thousands of years ago,” Lucifer explained, appreciating the moment to get his own thoughts in order as well. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t just do the same thing around Lux,” Dan said amusedly. 

“I would have if I had the slightest clue what they did and how,” Lucifer chuckled. 

That brought the end of that conversation and after a minute of tense silence, Dan gave up the ghost. “So…what now?” 

Lucifer sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair again. “They won’t stop coming for us,” he said wearily. “And it won’t be long until they take more drastic measures.”

“Drastic like…”

“Like killing you to keep you away from me.” 

“How do we prevent it?” Dan asked, trying not to freak out. 

“If we split up on our own then they have no reason to do so. Though they will likely continue to watch closely,” Lucifer said, as much as he hated that solution. 

“So…what…you brought me all the way out here to dump me?” Dan asked incredulously, voice raising an octave in his distress. “No. I’m not accepting that. I can’t lose you, Luc. Not like this.” If Lucifer didn’t want him anymore that was one thing, but that wasn’t what this was. At least he didn’t think so. 

“The only other option is to complete the bond. Now.” 

Dan let out a heavy breath and closed his eyes, trying to order his thoughts in a way that Lucifer would understand. After a moment he stepped forward and took both of Lucifer’s hands in his. “Lucifer, I love you. You know that. I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity with you, but I would never ask you for something that you’re not ready for. Even if it means losing you.”

Those heartfelt words were the last straw for Lucifer who had been teetering on the edge for a while now and he pulled Dan into a passionate kiss, resting their foreheads together once they needed air. “I…I love you, Daniel,” he breathed out. “If…If you’re ready for this, then I won’t turn you away.” If it had been up to him he would have taken at least a few more months to be sure, but they were backed into a corner now. It was now or never and the idea of never was gutting him. 

“I’m ready,” Dan said shakily. 

“Please, my love, be very very sure about this because once it’s done, it can never be undone,” Lucifer pleaded, already getting his hopes up far too high. 

Dan moved his hands up to Lucifer’s cheeks and kissed him softly before pulling back enough to look him in the eyes. “There is not a doubt in my mind that I want this, Lucifer. Can you say the same?” 

“No,” Lucifer admitted with a sigh. “I do have doubts, and probably will for a while. I would have liked more time, but we don’t have it.” He hated putting that hurt look on Dan’s face, but if there was one time that needed blunt honesty it was now. He reached up and wrapped his hands around Dan’s wrists as he went to move, holding them in place and rubbing his thumbs over the back of Dan’s hands. “What I don’t doubt is that I love you, Daniel, which means that I’m already in this forever.”

“Th-then what is it that you doubt?” Dan asked softly. 

“That we’re ready for this commitment,” he told him. “That we’re ready to tie our souls together for eternity.” 

“What do you want to do, Luc?” Dan asked gently before getting a slight smile as he remembered the first night they were together. “Where we go from here is entirely in your hands.”

Lucifer took a long moment before answering. “The idea of walking away from you now is debilitating. I just…I can’t do it. Ready or not, this is where we are, and I can’t lose you. Will you bond with me?” 

Dan would have liked a more concrete assurance from Lucifer, but he completely understood where he was coming from. They’d only been together for a little over six months and they were talking about forever. It was too big and it was too fast, but he too had realized that it was now or never and the idea of losing Lucifer was just as debilitating for him as it was for Lucifer. “Absolutely.”


	17. Chapter 17

“So how do we do this and how long will it take? Do I need to make arrangements for Trix?” Dan asked. 

“I already did that,” Lucifer admitted. “Linda called to warn me just before my uninvited guest arrived and I knew I needed to bring you here to figure things out. I asked her to get with Maze and see that Trixie was taken care of for a few days, just in case.”

“So this is going to take a few days?” Dan asked. 

“Three to be exact,” Lucifer told him. “It’s not a complicated ceremony though. We’ll need to be naked, of course, and we’ll each place a cut on our hands and over our hearts then you put your hand over my heart and vice versa while I wrap my wings around us and we say ‘Consociatus aeternitati nos animas nostras’ which means ‘Let our souls be shared between us for eternity’ loosely translated. Then we have to keep full body and wing contact while the bond settles which takes about three days, then we consummate it to seal it.”

“Okay. I’ll need a little coaching on the words before we start, but I have a few other questions first if that’s okay?” 

“Of course, my love,” Lucifer told him, sitting down, pulling Dan with him, and wrapping his arms around his lover. “Ask away.” 

“Well, other than being immortal and invulnerable and the slight chance of powers, what will change for me or for us?” Dan asked as he leaned sideways against Lucifer’s chest. 

“Your emotional capacity will increase to be closer to mine which means you’ll probably have a bit of emotional instability for a week or two as you get used to it. We’ll also have a shared empathy between us, since our souls will be bonded and that’s where emotions come from. That will make it easier to help you through that emotional instability. Over time, depending on the strength of our bond we may develop a form of telepathy, able to send thoughts and images mentally over distances, but that’s decades if not centuries away. Your strength and senses fall into the same category as the powers as in a slight possibility they will be increased, but not likely. Your stamina will be though, but you’ll have to work at it for a while to get it up to that level to start with. Hmm. What else…” he got lost in thought trying to make sure he didn’t miss anything. 

“So we won’t have to stay around each other twenty-four seven or anything?” Dan half-asked somewhat relieved. That had been a slight concern. 

“No, not at all. We’ll always feel best when we’re closer together, but there are no adverse effects of being apart,” Lucifer told him, running a hand up and down Dan’s arm. 

“And will distance have any effect on the empathy?” he asked curiously as he laid his head on Lucifer’s shoulder. 

“No. We’ll be able to sense each other’s emotions from anywhere,” Lucifer assured him. “Oh and neither of us will have the ability to stray. Not completely anyway. Our bodies won’t respond if we’re doing something we know the other wouldn’t appreciate.” 

“What if we’re both into it?” Dan asked. “Like threesomes or something? Not that I want to. I mean not right now anyway, but…you know…eternity is a long time and…”

Lucifer cut him off with a chuckle and a kiss. “As long as we’re both good with it and we know that, it’s fine, but we’ll be able to feel any hesitation or discomfort from each other which could interfere with things, so it would only be possible if we’re both /truly/ okay with it.”

“So no pretending then. Got it,” Dan said with a chuckle. Not that he likely would anyway. He would only be tempted to if Lucifer made it clear that he wanted that and Lucifer had never shown any indication that he would push things in that direction. Dan was sure that if he did decide he wanted that one day, he would have to be the one to bring it up. “What about things like eating and sleeping and stuff?” 

“You would be able to function on less sleep, like Maze and I, but you would still need at least a few hours a night to be at your peak. As far as food goes, you wouldn’t need to watch what you eat anymore since your body will always maintain at it’s healthiest version no matter what you eat. With drugs and alcohol you wouldn’t be able to overdose or get alcohol poisoning, but you would likely still get drunk or high like normal up to that point, though vomiting and hangovers will be a think of the past. Like with the powers and such, there is a slight possibility that your tolerance could increase closer to my level, but not likely.” 

“Okay. I doubt I’ll ever get much into the drugs though, but again, eternity is a long time,” he chuckled. “Anything else you can think of?”

“Oh and your mental capacity will be increased as well since, like me, your physiology would adapt to living forever. It won’t be an overnight thing though,” Lucifer explained. “I’m pretty sure that’s it. Any other questions?” 

“If my emotional capacity will be increased, would that mean for everyone? I mean, would it make it even harder to lose people?” Dan asked worriedly, snuggling tighter against Lucifer at the thought of it. 

“Yes, it would, but it would also be easier in a way too,” Lucifer tried to explain. “I’m not really sure how to put it into words really, but I’ll try. It’s kind of like how we celestials don’t really hold grudges and get over things easier. When you live so long, things like betrayals and such are fleeting and it’s easier to move on from them. The people you love will always be a part of you and their loss will always hurt, but it will be easier to remember the good instead of dwelling on the pain. Am I making any sense?”

“Sort of,” Dan said amusedly. “Enough for me to get the gist and know that I won’t really understand until I experience it.” 

Lucifer gave it a few minutes to make sure that there were no more questions forthcoming before he asked, “Are you ready to do this then?” 

Dan took a deep breath and nodded as he got to his feet. “I just wish we were somewhere warmer,” he grumbled as he started stripping off his clothes. 

Lucifer laughed and got up to do the same. “Don’t worry, darling. My wings will keep you plenty warm,” he assured him, walking him through the words as they undressed. Once they were both naked, and Dan was shivering, Lucifer grabbed the small hell-forged blade that he always kept on him for emergencies and was quick to make the cuts so that he could wrap his wings around his lover for warmth. Once the cuts were made, Lucifer’s wings pulled Dan close so that there was just enough room between them for their hands. 

Dan gasped at both the beauty and feel of Lucifer’s wings. He could still feel the cold air affecting him, but presumably that would be taken care of once the circle was closed around them. He could feel the comforting warmth radiating from the wings and it was giving him an almost euphoric feeling. He snapped out of it as he felt Lucifer’s hand press to his chest and he did the same as they said together, “Consociatus aeternitati nos animas nostras.” 

They both sucked in a sharp breath at the feeling of their souls tugging and mingling together and tears sprung to both sets of eyes. Neither of them had ever felt anything so profound. So fulfilling. Like their entire lives had been in preparation for this moment. Even Lucifer, with his increased capacity for emotions was overwhelmed. He couldn’t have stopped his lips from crashing into Dan’s if he’d tried and neither of them noticed the cuts healing on both of them as their hands moved to wrap around each other. Lucifer’s wings tightened around them almost like a cocoon and they were soon lost in each other. 

“I know you said that we have to consummate it after, in a few days, but is there anything that says we can’t now too?” Dan asked hopefully. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Lucifer said disappointed. “We would have to lose too much body contact for that,” he explained, still kissing and sucking his way down Dan’s neck and shoulders. “But there’s nothing preventing us from getting off like this though,” he said breathlessly rocking his hips to rub their erections together. 

“You don’t know…how glad I am…to hear that,” Dan gasped out, wrapping his legs in Lucifer’s as the devil lowered them to the ground. 

“Oh I’m pretty sure…I have a good idea,” Lucifer moaned at the increased friction between them and he could feel himself reaching the edge already. 

“Oh…shit…yes…Lucifer…” Dan gasped out as his cum sprayed between them and it was joined almost immediately by Lucifer’s. 

Lucifer rolled them to the side, careful to keep both his arms and wings wrapped tightly around Dan as he did while they caught their breath and came down from their highs. Once he was capable of words again, Lucifer pointed out, “Unfortunately, cleaning up is not going to be possible for a few days either.” 

Dan laughed and shook his head before resting it in the crook of Lucifer’s neck. “It won’t exactly be comfortable, but I can’t say that I’m sorry.” 

“Nor am I, my love,” Lucifer said amusedly, turning to kiss Dan’s head. “Nor am I.”

“So we just stay here like this for three days?” Dan asked. “What about food and water and even the bathroom and stuff?” 

“Nope. None of that,” Lucifer told him. “That’s what I forgot to mention before. I do apologize. Your body will no longer produce waste now so bathroom functions will be unnecessary. As far as food and water, going to long without won’t be pleasant, but it won’t harm us either. I’ve heard others explain it as symbolic as well as necessary. Proving that all we need is each other.” 

Dan smiled and pressed a kiss to Lucifer’s neck. “I’m glad you put it like that. It makes it easier.” 

“I thought it might,” Lucifer said with a smile. It definitely made it easier for him to contemplate.


	18. Chapter 18

Once Linda hung up the phone with Lucifer, she took a few deep breaths for calm before calling Maze. “Is it time?” Maze asked excitedly as she answered the phone. 

“No, not yet,” Linda chuckled. “I do have something else important to talk to you about though, but in person might be better if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, but I have the kid and I don’t know when Dan will be home,” Maze explained. 

“That’s okay. I’d rather come to you anyway,” Linda told her, not wanting to get into detail about Dan not coming home tonight until she was there in person. “I have a few things to do here first, but it shouldn’t take long and I’ll be headed that way.” 

“Okay. See you then,” Maze told her. 

Once that was settled, Linda went upstairs and grabbed a box and started throwing all of Amenadiel’s stuff in it, not caring in the slightest about the quality of the packing job. Thankfully, he didn’t have much. Mostly clothes and a few books. It filled three boxes though and rather than try to carry them with her protruding stomach, she just made sure they were securely closed and kicked them down the stairs so they would be seen as soon as he came in. She got a marker and wrote his name on them and then wrote a quick note telling him to take his stuff and leave. She added that she would call him when the baby was born and they could figure out a custody arrangement, but she didn’t want to see or hear from him until then. Anyone who could try and destroy their own brother like this was not welcome in her home. Lucifer deserved better. 

She decided that she would stay with Maze for a few days, assuming she didn’t mind and she doubted that she would. She knew that she was taking the cowards way out with Amenadiel, but in her condition she didn’t want to take any chances. Not with his angelic strength and him acting as erratic as he was now. Sticking close to the demon was the best option. At least since the devil wasn’t around. With that thought she took her hospital go bag just in case and put a few more changes of clothes in another bag to take with her. 

When she got to the apartment, Maze met her at the bottom of the stairs to help her up, and Linda was grateful for that. Even in her own house the stairs had been an adventure lately and these were metal and wet so the help was definitely appreciated. “Trix just went to bed right before you called or I would have kept her up to say hi,” Maze explained once they were inside and sitting. 

“It’s okay. It might be best to tell her this tomorrow anyway,” Linda told her. 

“Tell her what? What happened?” Maze asked worriedly. 

“It started when I overheard Amenadiel and one of his brothers talking. Apparently God found out about Lucifer and Dan and was worried about them getting too close…I can’t say why.”

“I know already,” Maze assured her. “I was let in on the secret right after Lucifer moved in. I guess since the head dick already knows there’s no point in keeping quiet anymore, but I know they were considering a soulbond.”

“Oh good. That makes this easier to explain then,” Linda said relieved. “Amenadiel was trying to separate them, I don’t know how, but if whatever he tried didn’t work then they were talking about taking ‘drastic measures’ whatever that means.”

“That means assassination,” Maze told her. “And I’ll kill them if they try it,” she added with a growl. 

“Right. Totally didn’t want to know that,” Linda said with a shudder. “Anyway, I called Lucifer to warn him and he didn’t say much. Too worried about you know who paying attention, but he did imply that he was taking Dan away for a few days and asked me to get with you and make sure that Trixie was taken care of while they were gone.”

“Holy shit he’s actually gonna do it,” Maze said wide-eyed. 

“Do what?” Linda asked, despite the fact that she had a pretty good idea. 

“He actually said ‘a few days’?” she asked and Linda nodded. “The soulbonding takes three days,” Maze told her. 

“Oh my god!” Linda breathed out before slapping her hand over her mouth. “Will they be safe though? I mean…wouldn’t God be able to see them and stop it before they’re done? Or what about after?”

Maze shook her head. “If Lucifer is smart and we know he is, he would have taken Dan to the Wytchwoods. It has ancient protections around it so God can’t see in and no one, even him, can get in if their intent is to harm anyone inside. Once the deed is done, no one can touch them. Even God can’t separate a soulbond.” 

“That’s why they were so desperate to stop it,” she realized. 

“Exactly. Since they’re of two different worlds, once their bond is complete they are out of anyone’s control.”

“So Dan’s humanity keeps God from controlling him anymore like the other angels?” 

“Exactly. If Dan was an angel then they would both still be under him, but since he’s not…”

“Then Lucifer finally gets his freedom,” Linda said with a smile. She understood now why Lucifer wanted this so badly. She still thought they were rushing into it and hoped they wouldn’t regret it, but she could see how it was necessary in this case. If Maze had figured out that assassination was the next option, then surely Lucifer would have too. 

“I hadn’t considered it like that. It makes more sense now,” Maze said thoughtfully. She’d wondered why Lucifer would ever consider tying himself to a human forever, but when she put it that way it was rather obvious. “Thanks for letting me know, but I can take care of the kid until they get back. You should get home and rest.”

Linda shook her head. “I was actually hoping you wouldn’t mind me staying here? At least until Lucifer and Dan get back?” 

“Of course, I don’t mind, but why?” Maze asked worriedly. 

“I packed up Amenadiel’s stuff and left him a note to get the hell out. I want nothing to do with someone who would treat his own brother that way. I’m afraid of his reaction though,” she admitted. 

Maze smirked and pulled her blades. “I got you. Don’t worry. He won’t get within ten feet of you or I’ll slice him to ribbons.” 

Linda grinned and pulled Maze into a hug. “Thank you, Maze. Really. You’re the best. I left my bags in the car,” she said as she started to get up. 

Maze pushed her back down. “You stay. I’ll go get them,” she said, teleporting down there and back with the bags. She didn’t usually use that power for the sake of blending in, but she didn’t want to leave Linda alone with a potentially vengeful angel running around. Once she was back, Linda went to get ready for bed and was steered to Maze’s bed and the demon sat in the chair next to it and kept watch until she dozed off, comfortable in the knowledge that she would wake at the slightest movement. 

Amenadiel noticed the girl come down, still straightening her clothes, but let her go. He’d seen Dan go up a few minutes ago and she likely wanted to get out of the way of the fight. He stood there watching the elevator for a good long time, but neither Dan nor Lucifer came down. After a few hours it was getting close to closing time so he decided to go up himself. Surely they couldn’t still be fighting. When he found the penthouse empty he frowned in confusion. Sure Lucifer had another way out on his wings, but Dan didn’t. Unless Lucifer took him, but why would he do that if they were fighting? It didn’t make any sense. Either way, they weren’t there so he went home. 

When he got there he tilted his head, again confused, at why there were boxes with his name on them. At least this time he had a clue though, so he picked up the letter to read, getting angrier and angrier as he read on. How did she know? Of course she took Lucifer’s side. His brother was better than he could ever be at attracting people. The only thing that kept him from going after her was the promise that she would call him when the child was born. He wasn’t going to let her keep him from his son and if she called in Lucifer for help, she could easily disappear somewhere he could never find her. He had no choice but to play nice for now. 

It was a few minutes before Dan realized that he wasn’t feeling any pain. “Did our cuts heal?” 

“Yes,” Lucifer told him. “Once our souls accepted the bonding it healed us.” 

“Oh. That’s handy,” Dan chuckled. “So…are we married now or…” 

“It’s a bit more than simply married,” Lucifer explained. “But I wouldn’t object to that term.”

“What term should I use then?” Dan asked curiously. 

“Mated or Soulbonded would be more accurate.” 

“Okay. I think I like that better anyway,” Dan said with a smile and the conversation moved on to other things. Three days with nothing else to do left plenty of time for conversation after all.


	19. Chapter 19

On the third day, Dan asked, “How will we know when it’s done? Or are you timing it or something?” 

“We’ll know,” Lucifer said with a chuckle. He didn’t know a lot about how things felt obviously since he’d never done it before, but everyone always said that it was unmistakable. 

Judging by the position of the sun, it was around noon when they both felt an unmistakable burst of emotion and Dan couldn’t help but gasp. “Wh-what is that?” he asked as he felt a more intense consuming love than he could ever have imagined wash over him. 

“That’s what I feel for you,” Lucifer said softly. “It means that it’s done.”

Dan felt the tears welling up in his eyes at the strength of Lucifer’s love for him and there was only one response to that. His lips met Lucifer’s as he felt the same intensity growing in him. He’d thought he loved Lucifer before, but it had nothing on this. No wonder it had taken so long for Lucifer to get there. No wonder angels mated for life. If this was what love was like for them there could never be anyone else. 

Lucifer loosened his wings enough to allow them more freedom of movement, but still kept them wrapped to keep the cool October air from his still human mate as their bodies quickly started to react. There would definitely be no problem with the sealing of the bond. Lucifer rolled them towards his clothes and fumbled with his pockets looking for his wallet with one hand as the other trailed over Dan’s body. He finally got it out and pulled out his emergency pack of lube and handed it to Dan. “Take me, my love,” he panted out. 

Dan wasted no time getting it open and slicking up his cock. They had done this often enough to know that Lucifer didn’t actually /need/ prep, though he still liked to do it more often than not. Neither of them had the patience for it right now though. Choking moans pulled from both of them as Dan slid inside his mate. They were both getting a double dose of every bit of lust which was already way beyond anything Dan had ever felt before even without Lucifer’s added in. “Fuck…not gonna…last long…”

“I know,” Lucifer gasped. “Me either,” he admitted. The double dose was hitting him hard too. It was just barely on the right side of embarrassing how quick it was before they were both spilling over with harsh cries. It took a moment to catch their breath before the hunger and thirst started to overwhelm them. “Let’s have a quick rinse and drink from the stream before we get dressed and head home to get something to eat,” Lucifer suggested. 

“You want me to rinse off in that cold water?” Dan asked incredulously. 

“Would you rather get dressed while covered in cum?” Lucifer joked. “Don’t worry. It’ll be cold, but you’re not susceptible to hypothermia or anything anymore and I can use my wings to dry you off quickly.”

“Yeah, okay. But it’ll be really quick,” Dan sighed, struggling to make his legs work after not using them for three days followed by the most mind-blowing sex of his life. He could feel Lucifer’s amusement at his predicament as the devil got up easily and reached a hand down to help him up. He headed for the stream and rather than chicken himself out by easing into it, he just jumped in. The water was only as deep as his chest, but since he’d tucked his legs, he was completely submerged. As soon as he surfaced he let out a yelp and scrambled for the shore. “Dry. Now,” he ordered shivering as he wrapped his arms around himself. 

Lucifer laughed heartily and flapped his wings a few times, sending strong gusts of wind at Dan, only not making it worse because of the natural heat his wings radiated making the air they threw warm. “There you go love. All dry. Now I’ll go rinse while you get dressed.” 

“I’m glad you’re amused,” Dan grumbled as he grabbed frantically for his clothes. 

Lucifer chuckled again as he headed for the water, unphased by the cold. He could feel the happiness underneath Dan’s irritation so he was worried about teasing his bonded, knowing that it didn’t truly bother him. Lucifer took a few minutes longer, getting a little bit cleaner before getting out and using his suit jacket to dry off the hard way. He could hardly throw air at himself after all. He put the rest of his clothes on, carrying the now wet jacket, and wrapped Dan in his arms, heading home and landing in the kitchen. 

Maze and Linda laughed when they heard the ruckus from the kitchen and Maze got up to grab the pizza box from the fridge and handed it to them. “Bless you Mazikeen,” Lucifer said gratefully. 

“What he said,” Dan added as they both grabbed a piece right out of the box on the way to the table before they sat down to eat. 

“I figured you idiots would be starving when you got back,” she chuckled. 

“I told you she’d figure out what we were doing,” Lucifer grinned. 

“I didn’t disagree,” Dan pointed out. 

Maze headed back to the living room to wait for them to finish eating before they all had the talk they needed to. At least Trixie had just left for school so they wouldn’t be interrupted. 

Lucifer and Dan finished the entire pizza in silence, too concerned with eating to talk, not to mention they were a bit talked out with each other after the last three days. Once they were done, they headed to the living room, surprised to find both Linda and Maze there and they sat down on the couch. Dan immediately curled up to Lucifer’s side, not ready to let him go yet. Not with all the newly intense feelings washing through him. Lucifer held him tightly, completely understanding his situation even without the emotions accompanying it. “Thank you both for taking care of Beatrice in our sudden absence,” Lucifer told them. 

“It was no problem,” Linda said with a smile. “How are you both?” 

“It’s a big adjustment, but we’re handling it,” Lucifer said with a smile, rubbing his hand over Dan’s arm, knowing that he wasn’t quite ready for words with his emotions still going haywire. 

“That’s good. I hate that you were forced into rushing this though. I hope you don’t end up regretting it,” Linda said sympathetically. 

Lucifer tightened his arm around Dan, feeling the spike of irrational anger. “Easy love. She’s just being a concerned friend and therapist. She didn’t mean anything by it,” he said soothingly. 

Dan huffed a breath, forcing himself to calm down. “Right. Sorry. Still getting used to the new intensity of my emotions and all,” he said sheepishly. 

“No, I’m sorry. I could have worded that better,” Linda admitted. 

“Now that all the mushy stuff is out of the way, we need to talk,” Maze butted in before anyone could go off on a tangent. 

“Oh?” Lucifer asked raising an eyebrow. 

“Since you guys are all bonded and everything now, I’m moving out. I’m gonna go stay with Linda and help with the baby and all,” Maze told them. 

“Isn’t that the job of the infant’s father?” Lucifer asked pointedly. 

“You don’t honestly think I would still be with him after what he tried to do to you?” Linda asked incredulously. 

“It’s far from the worst thing he’s ever done,” Lucifer chuckled. “This was something completely expected if you’ll remember.” 

“I don’t care if you expected it or not. I don’t care that he’s done worst in the past. I thought he had moved past that. I thought he was better than that now, but I was wrong. I want nothing to do with him anymore,” Linda snapped, rubbing her swollen belly. 

“Okay. Fair enough,” Lucifer said quickly, not willing to argue with a pregnant woman. He suddenly realized that he was currently in a room with two people with unstable emotions and part of him wished he was anywhere else. 

“I get if you feel like you need to leave, and I’m glad Linda will have the help, but Trixie is going to miss you a lot,” Dan told Maze, trying to get the conversation back on track. 

“I know. I already had this conversation with the rugrat yesterday and she’s good with it. She’s glad that I’ll be helping Linda with the baby and it’s not like I won’t still be around,” Maze told him. 

“We understand,” Lucifer told her. “But know that you will always be welcome here anytime.” 

“Thanks,” Maze said sincerely with a smile, glad that this was going better than she anticipated. “I already talked to what’s her name…who watches Trix when we’re all busy…”

“Brenda?” Dan prompted. 

“Yeah. Her. She said she’s good to start watching her for a few hours every day after school if you want. I didn’t want to just leave you high and dry.”

“What are you not saying, Mazikeen? Why is it so urgent for you to leave quickly when the child isn’t born yet?” Lucifer asked suspiciously. 

“She’s protecting me from any manipulation or retaliation from Amenadiel after I kicked him out,” Linda answered for her, grateful that Maze was trying to cover for her, but seeing no need to hide it from Lucifer.

“I see. I hope you know that, should either of you need backup, I am but a prayer away as well,” Lucifer assured her. 

Linda smiled brightly. “Thank you, Lucifer. Really. I appreciate it more than you know.”


	20. Chapter 20

It seemed that Maze had been expecting them back today since her stuff was already packed and loaded in Linda’s car, so hugs were exchanged all around before Linda and Maze left the newly bonded alone. Almost the moment the door closed behind them, Lucifer pulled Dan in for a searing kiss. “What say we finish what we started in the forest?” he asked suggestively, already feeling the lust starting to spike from Dan as a clear yes anyway. Dan didn’t answer with words, just grabbed Lucifer’s hand and dragged him to the bedroom before they ended up going at it right there in the living room. 

They were both getting used to the new dynamic and Dan was getting used to the increased stamina and emotions as well, so they could be forgiven for losing track of time and not coming up for air until they heard Trixie call out that she was home. “Be right down!” Dan yelled, trying to keep his voice as even as possible. Thankfully they were both close and Lucifer stopped teasing and quickly pushed them over the edge. As soon as Dan was spent he jumped out of bed and grabbed his clothes, throwing them on quickly and rushed downstairs. 

Lucifer was taking his time, getting dressed far more leisurely before joining them, but then he felt an intense spike of emotion coming from Dan and he immediately transported himself downstairs. He at least had his pants on, but was still shirtless as he landed behind Dan and placed a hand on his back for support as he hugged Trixie, tears building in his eyes. “Daddy, are you okay?” Trixie asked worriedly. 

“He’s fine, little urchin. He’s just feeling a little overly emotional today is all,” Lucifer assured her, leading them both to the couch as Dan finally let go of her. 

“Sorry baby. Lucifer’s right. I didn’t mean to worry you,” Dan said, trying to rein it in. The calm that Lucifer was projecting to him was helping quite a bit. Once they were sitting, Dan asked, “What do you know about why we were gone the last few days?”

“Auntie Maze said you guys were kinda like married now and that you had to run away and do it really fast because Amenadiel and God were trying to stop you.”

“That’s roughly what happened, except that the ‘kinda like married’ connected our souls which made your father’s emotions far stronger than he is used to,” Lucifer explained. 

When Trixie looked at him confused, Dan tried, having more experience with explaining things to children and Trixie in particular. “My feelings are stronger now like Lucifer’s. Think of it like before my feelings could fit in a glass of water, but now they can fill a whole pool.” 

“So you were like that because you love me more than ever?” Trixie understood and Dan nodded. Trixie grinned happily and hugged him tightly. “I love you too, Daddy.” 

Lucifer felt his own love for them both well up in him at that and Dan turned to look at him in surprise. He’d known that Lucifer loved him, but hadn’t realized how strongly he felt for Trixie too. Lucifer knew what he was surprised about and just gave a sheepish smile and nod. He may not be good at expressing his feelings with a child, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there. When Dan finally let go of Trixie who was more patient than usual given the circumstances, she moved over to hug Lucifer to welcome him home too. “Since you guys are married now does that mean I can call you Daddy too?” she asked Lucifer whose eyes widened at the question as he looked at Dan. 

Dan smiled brightly and nodded that it was okay with him. If he couldn’t feel Lucifer’s emotions, he would think that he was panicked at the thought, and there was a little bit of that there, but mostly he was touched and hopeful. At Dan’s nod, Lucifer took a deep breath and said, “You may call me whatever you wish, child.” 

She grinned and hugged him tighter, kissing his cheek before she let go and launched into a long story about everything she’d done in the three days they’d been gone including the fact that Linda had been staying there and how she got to feel the baby kick. Neither of the men got a word in edgewise the rest of the day, though Lucifer did get a break from the chattering while he cooked dinner, but then she just caught him up with the short version of everything he’d missed before she continued. By the time Dan got her calmed down and into bed, both of them were beyond amused and also a little tired just from watching and hearing her exuberance. 

That night, Dan was definitely glad that he needed less sleep now, because tearing himself away from Lucifer was easier said than done. He was sure that this desperation would die down as he got more used to the feelings, but for right now, everything was just so huge that he couldn’t help himself. Not that Lucifer was complaining in the slightest. It had been a long time since he’d had a lover that could even come close to keeping up with him and he was greatly enjoying it. 

The next morning, Dan got Trixie off to school and called Brenda to confirm that she would be there when Trixie got home before he and Lucifer headed to work to face the music after disappearing for four days without a word. Sure enough, they had no sooner walked in the door than the lieutenant was barking, “Morningstar, Espinoza, my office.” Once they were inside and closed the door she crossed her arms. “I do hope you have a good explanation.”

“I don’t know how good you would consider it, but there is definitely an explanation,” Lucifer said, pausing as he tried to figure out where to start. Dan decided to let Lucifer handle the explaining since it was his family drama. 

“I’m waiting,” she said impatiently. 

“Right. Yeah,” Lucifer sighed heavily. “A lot of this is going to be rather personal so I’d appreciate if you kept it discreet?” When she nodded, he continued. “I’m sure you remembered when I mentioned that my emotions work differently than humans. Well that also goes for romantically. You see, angels mate for life and when I marked Daniel as a potential mate, we had to keep it secret, but my father found out anyway and tried to step in. I had to take Daniel away somewhere out of his reach to complete the process before he could have one or both of us killed to prevent it.”

“And you couldn’t even manage a simple phone call to let me know?” she asked sternly, not even wanting to get into the family drama aspect of it. 

“No. We couldn’t. There was no phone service where we were and speaking of what we were planning anywhere else would have been broadcasted to my father since he was likely watching closely. As it was, the moment I learned of his attempts to interfere, I grabbed Daniel and transported us there without a word to him either. I couldn’t take the risk,” Lucifer explained. 

“It’s true. I had no idea what was going on until we got there and he explained. It was just a good thing that the warning came from another human friend of ours and he managed to ask her to make sure Trixie was taken care of while we were gone,” Dan told her. 

“Alright. I suppose under the circumstances I can let it drop, but you’re still having your pay docked for the missing time. I’ll make sure it doesn’t go in your record though,” she told them. 

“That’s fair. Thank you,” Dan said with a grateful nod. 

“I understand that there will be celestial situations that crop up from time to time, and I also understand that this time you were unable to let me know, but I still expect to be kept in the loop whenever possible,” she reminded them and when she got two nods in return, she moved on. “Now this whole mating thing…is there anything that I should know about it that would affect the job?” 

“No,” Lucifer said at the same time that Dan said, “Yes.” 

She raised an amused eyebrow. “Which is it? Yes or no?” 

Lucifer shrugged and motioned Dan to speak. “I’m immortal and invulnerable now just like Lucifer,” he told her. “Also, for the next week or two my emotions are going to be all over the place.” 

“Which I can help mitigate just like I have been so far,” Lucifer pointed out before explaining to the confused lieutenant. “We’re empathic with each other now. His increased emotional capacity is going to take some getting used to, but I can feed him my emotions to keep him level when needed.” 

“Good enough. I’ll still try to keep you on desk duty as much as possible until you’re more stable though, but I can’t make any promises.” 

Dan nodded. That was understandable. “Well if you’re going to be on desk duty, there’s no point in me staying. I should check on my club and make sure everything is still running smoothly after my absence and try to catch up on the work I’ve missed there.” 

The lieutenant nodded. “Fair enough, but will you be available if we need your unique skills?” she asked. 

“Naturally. All you need do is call,” Lucifer drawled with a respectful nod. He was often called upon to help with difficult interrogations and such these days so he would still be in and out. “We should check in with our dear Ms. Lopez before I go though. I would imagine she has been rather concerned.”

“That’s an understatement,” the lieutenant said with a snort. “/Please/ go reassure her before you go.”


	21. Chapter 21

Lucifer and Dan barely made it upstairs before Ella barreled out of the lab and hugged them both at once. “I’m so glad you’re back and okay. Where were you? What happened? Maze and Linda wouldn’t say much,” she asked as she dragged them into the lab for privacy. 

Lucifer laughed and gave her much the same explanation they had given the lieutenant and at her questions added the why God cared so much. She was as good as a sister to them both, so unlike most, she deserved the real answer. Now that the deed was done, there was no reason to keep it secret anymore anyway. They were untouchable now. 

Ella squealed happily once she got the whole story and hugged them together again. “That is so great. I mean it sucks how it happened and that you were basically forced into it, but…you know…soulbonded and all…I’m so happy for you both. You’re gonna get married still too though right?” 

“I don’t know…” Dan said nervously, looking at Lucifer for an answer to that. They hadn’t really talked about it, but Dan knew how much Lucifer disdained the institution of marriage. 

“Darling, just because I dislike the fickleness of human marriage doesn’t mean that I would deny you anything you wish. We already have the real commitment anyway.” 

“I mean, it would be good to make it legal and all,” Dan pointed out. There would be benefits. 

“Then we can do so. Whether you want to just visit the courthouse or you want a big fancy wedding,” Lucifer assured him. 

“I’m good with the courthouse. Like you said, we already have all the commitment we need, so there’s no point in a big production.”

“Okay, don’t do the courthouse,” Ella burst in. “I mean, you don’t need to do a big thing, but it can still be fun. I can go online and get ordained tonight and we can do something simple and fun. I could even do the ceremony in Klingon or something. Either way we still have to throw a party for you too.”

Lucifer laughed and looked at Dan who shrugged so he told Ella, “Very well. You do as you wish Ella dear and have fun with it. Just give us a cue when it’s time to say I do. We can do it in the penthouse with Linda and Maze as witnesses. And the urchin too of course, though she’s too young to be a legal witness.” 

“Perfect. Saturday night? That gives me three days to get ready,” Ella suggested. 

“Make it Sunday if you would. I would prefer not to close Lux to the public on Saturday if it can be avoided,” Lucifer asked. 

“Sunday it is then. It’ll be afternoon then though. Don’t want to keep everyone out so late on a work night.” 

Once they agreed, Lucifer made his escape and headed out to check on Lux. Everything was good with the club of course, except the paperwork that he was more than a bit behind on. Before he started on that though, he made arrangements to have the club closed for a private party on Sunday, but still kept the bartenders on this time, telling them it was to celebrate his wedding. He knew that Dan would spread the word at the precinct. Over the course of the day he had to send calming emotions Dan’s way a few times and once had to transport himself there to calm him in person when a suspect being dragged in set him off. Thankfully he had been working upstairs so no one saw him leave and he had appeared in the bathroom and walked out when he got there. 

When Sunday rolled around Dan and Lucifer both dressed in nice suits and headed to the penthouse with Trixie, Maze and Linda meeting them there. All of them got a good laugh when Ella showed up dressed as a Klingon, complete with a prosthetic forehead. She did the whole ceremony in Klingon with just a nod to them when it was time to say I do. The marriage license was signed and ready to be sent in and Linda asked them teasingly, “Do you have any idea what you agreed to there?” 

“Not a clue,” Dan laughed. 

“Well her pronunciation was so bad that I technically agreed to wash my socks,” Lucifer laughed with them. “It’s the thought that counts though.”

“You speak Klingon?” Dan asked incredulously. 

At the same time, Ella protested, “My pronunciation isn’t /that/ bad!” 

“The devil speaks all languages, darling, and it’s alright Ella dear. The guttural nature of the language makes it difficult for the human throat to reproduce without a great deal of practice,” he answered them both. 

“You should hear humans try to speak Lilim,” Maze laughed. 

“Ooh. Can I hear some?” Ella asked excitedly. She loved the idea of the demonic language. 

Maze said a long sentence in Lilim and Lucifer laughed as he chided her jokingly. “Mazey darling. There is a child present. That kind of language is uncalled for.”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Dan laughed. 

“I do!” Trixie piped up. 

“I said…” Maze was cut off by Lucifer’s hand over her mouth but she just shoved him away and continued. “Something that I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she finished before turning to Lucifer. “Give me some credit, Lucifer.” 

“You’re correct, Mazikeen. Apologies,” he said amusedly with a short bow of respect. 

“You have to teach me Lilim one of these days,” Ella told Maze as they headed downstairs to join the party that had already started. 

Lucifer had won the argument for Trixie to attend the party. Since it wasn’t public, she was legally allowed to do so. Dan had won the argument about leaving by ten since it was a school night though. It was still later than her usual bedtime, but it was a special occasion too. Naturally they both agreed that she wouldn’t be consuming any alcohol. Not even Lucifer was crazy enough to let a ten year old drink. The bartender got plenty of experience with Shirley Temples that night. For both Trixie and Linda, who joined her in a show of solidarity instead of going with her usual club soda. 

For the first time in his life, Lucifer left a party at ten, as agreed, and went home with Dan and Trixie, leaving the rest of the crowd, most of them from the precinct, to continue the party. Linda and Maze left not long after them since Linda was tired and Maze was still acting as bodyguard. From there, everything returned to routine. The lieutenant deemed Dan stable enough to get back in the field and the only noticeable difference in their lives from before the bonding was the late hours that they stayed up enjoying each other. Below the surface there were a lot of differences though as they fell more in love by the day. 

Their routine was broken two weeks later though when both Dan and Lucifer’s phones went off at the same time with the same message. Linda was in labor. It was still the middle of the day so they couldn’t leave though. Well Lucifer technically could have, but since they were on an active case, he shouldn’t. Dan assured him that labor takes forever anyway and Maze was with her anyway, so they finished out the day before stopping to pick up Trixie on the way to the hospital. 

They would only allow one more person into the delivery room other than Maze though and Dan insisted that it be Lucifer. He was the baby’s biological uncle after all. Lucifer was more than a little squeamish about the idea, but when he learned that Linda was asking for him, he sucked it up and went in. He was very glad that he wasn’t human as Linda proceeded to try and break every bone in his hand during the delivery and made him promise between contractions not to tell Amenadiel yet. She didn’t want to deal with him until after they went home at least. He easily agreed. That was between the two of them. 

Once the baby was born and he and Linda were cleaned up, she was moved to another room and Dan, Trixie, and Ella who had arrived soon after the rest, joined them. When they learned that Linda hadn’t decided on a name yet, they all started throwing out suggestions. It was Dan who had the winner though. “How about Charles? After Charlotte?” 

Linda smiled and nodded. “I like it. Charles. Charlie,” she said looking down at the baby lovingly. 

Lucifer could feel Dan’s apprehension about the suggestion and that it was directed towards him and assumed that it was because Dan was worried about how Lucifer would take it given the previous relationship between him and Charlotte. Lucifer just reached out and wrapped his arm around Dan, pressing a kiss to his temple and sending him feelings of reassurance. “What about a middle name?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

Linda considered it for a moment before her eyes met his and she smiled brightly. “Lucas,” she decided. Lucifer blinked the tears from his eyes at that as he nodded and it was Dan’s turn to help calm his overwhelming emotions.


	22. Chapter 22

A few days after they got home from the hospital, Linda had sent Maze to the store to pick up some more formula for the baby and she had only been gone for about five minutes before Amenadiel appeared. “I’m here for my son. He belongs in Heaven,” he told her. 

Linda pulled the baby tighter against her and ducked into the first room she saw, slamming and locking the door as she closed her eyes and mentally prayed. ‘Luc-Samael. Please help me. He’s trying to take the baby. Come quick.’ “You can’t have him,” she said aloud. 

“Come, Linda. You should know that a locked door means nothing to me. All you are doing is delaying the inevitable,” Amenadiel said evenly. He didn’t want to have to take the baby by force, but he would if she forced him to. 

All Linda could think to do was keep him talking until Lucifer got here. If he got here. She just hoped that he was in a position that he could come and not in the middle of a chase or an interrogation or something. Amenadiel had obviously waited until Maze left, so maybe he made sure that Lucifer was busy too. “Please Amenadiel. We can raise him here on Earth. He’s half human too remember,” she tried to reason with him. 

Lucifer and Dan were interrogating a suspect when Lucifer suddenly tensed and tilted his head. He leaned over to Dan and whispered, “Gotta go. It’s Linda,” before rushing out of the room and transporting away from the hall, not caring who saw him. Almost everyone but the suspect knew anyway. He reappeared next to Linda, following her prayer as he heard Amenadiel answer, “He can overcome that weakness in the Silver City. He will be raised well. Don’t make me take him by force, Linda, because you know I can.” 

Lucifer took Linda’s shoulders, not wanting Amenadiel to hear him and know he was there too soon and steered her gently towards the back corner of the room, giving a reassuring squeeze before he let her go and moved back to the door and yanked it open. “What do you think you’re doing, brother?” he asked coldly, walking forward and backing Amenadiel away from the door, closing it behind him. 

“I’m here to get my son, Luci. It has nothing to do with you,” Amenadiel told him, trying to avoid a fight. Especially since there was no telling when Maze would be back. He knew that Linda didn’t have her phone, but Lucifer may have called her. 

“It has everything to do with me, Amenadiel. Linda is my friend and you’re trying to take her child from her. You know I can’t allow that to happen.”

“He is my SON!” Amenadiel snapped. “He is a celestial and he belongs in Heaven!” 

“No. He belongs with his mother,” Lucifer snapped back. “I’m sure that she wouldn’t deny you visitation, brother. It doesn’t have to come to this.” Linda had already said that she wasn’t against Amenadiel helping to raise him, but taking him away from her completely was not happening. Not on his watch. 

“He doesn’t belong here among the filth having his head filled with their ridiculous small minded ideas,” Amenadiel said angrily. “I am taking him, even if I have to go through you to do it.” He made the mistake then of shoving Lucifer out of the way. It only worked because Lucifer hadn’t expected it right at that second, but Lucifer quickly righted himself and tackled his brother. The fight ended up tearing half of the living room apart before Maze came in the door, tossing the shopping bag to the side and vaulting over the banister. When Amenadiel noticed her, he snarled, “This isn’t over,” before disappearing from the spot just as Maze reached him. 

“Damnit!” she snapped throwing her knife at the wall. “He was watching for me to leave wasn’t he.”

“Probably,” Lucifer told her, just as irritated, as he went to open the bedroom door. “It’s safe now,” he told Linda. 

Linda came out, tears streaming down her cheeks, and stopped short at the sight of the living room and the blood and bruises covering Lucifer’s face. “A-are you okay?” she asked worriedly. 

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had much worse,” Lucifer assured her, leading her to the still intact couch that Maze was clearing debris off of. “Are /you/ alright?” 

Linda nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. He was just talking before you got here. I don’t know how to thank you, Lucifer. I wouldn’t have been able to hold him off for long.” 

“I told you that I was only a prayer away,” he reminded her, wrapping a comforting arm around her. 

“He’s going to come back,” Maze pointed out. “He’s not going to let it go at this.” 

“What can we do?” Linda asked fearfully. 

“Aside from making sure that neither of you are ever alone?” Lucifer asked, knowing that wouldn’t be feasible in the long term. 

“We can’t keep that up forever,” Linda told them. “Especially as he gets older.”

“There is one thing…but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it,” Lucifer said hesitantly. 

“You mean…” Maze trailed off with wide eyes and Lucifer nodded. “You would do that?” she asked in shock. 

“Do what?” Linda asked impatiently. 

“See, back in the beginning, when it was just heaven, some of my siblings wanted to be parents, but since angels are unable to procreate, Dad came up with a blood adoption that would allow them to take a baby angel as their own,” Lucifer explained. 

“You’re not saying…” 

“Would it even work with him since he’s only half-angel?” Maze asked curiously. 

“I can’t be certain, of course, but theoretically, yes. Since I would be overwriting the angel portion of his DNA with my own and leaving the human part alone, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work,” Lucifer told her. 

“I can’t ask you to do that, Lucifer,” Linda said amazed that he would even offer. 

Lucifer nodded sadly. “I understand. I wouldn’t trust me with a child either. We’ll still do everything possible to protect you both though, Linda. You have my word.”

Linda reached a hand to his arm and shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again at his statement. “No, Lucifer. That’s not what I meant. I do trust you, completely. Even with him. I just meant that you shouldn’t have to take on a responsibility that isn’t yours.” 

“He is my family either way,” Lucifer told her. “I’m already taking the responsibility to keep him safe. This will just make it easier to do so.” 

Linda sighed. “You’re right. Okay then. How do we do this?” 

“There’s more you should know before you decide,” Lucifer said. “If I do this, he would be bound to me and since I’m now bound to this dimension, so would he be. He would never be able to see Heaven or leave this dimension at all.” 

Linda closed her eyes against the pain of his words. She didn’t want Amenadiel to take him to heaven forever, but she hated the idea of denying him his birthright completely. Earth was his birthright too though and if she didn’t do this then he would lose that one. She forced herself to remember that it was Amenadiel forcing this choice on them. Just like he had forced Lucifer’s choice of bonding with Dan. Would he be better off in Heaven though? Should she just let Amenadiel take him? At least then he would still have the freedom to choose someday. She shook that thought off. He wouldn’t have the freedom to choose anything. Seeing what Amenadiel became the second he was back under heaven’s power proved that and everything that Lucifer had told her over the years reinforced it. No, he was better off here. Here he could be free, not beholden to a tyrant. “Okay. We need to do this.” 

Lucifer and Maze had been waiting patiently for her to decide, not rushing her in the slightest. They both let out a sigh of relief when she did though. Protecting him would be much easier when the chance to take him away was taken out of Amenadiel’s hands. If he wanted to take him after this, then he would have to keep him on Earth anyway which defeated the entire point. “I’ll have to take him,” Lucifer told her gently. “Just for a few days. I swear he will be returned to you as soon as possible.” 

Linda’s arms tightened around him as the tears started to fall again. She knew that Lucifer would bring him back. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could be trusted. That didn’t mean that the idea of letting him go after almost losing him was any easier though. “I know, it’s hard, Linda,” Maze said moving to her other side. “But the longer we wait the more chance of us being stopped. If Amenadiel goes back to Heaven for help…” 

Linda took a few deep breaths for courage before placing Charlie gently in Lucifer’s arms. “Make sure you take the formula Maze got,” she told him and handed him the diaper bag. “There are bottles in there and the instructions are on the formula container. Will you be okay with that or do you need me to show you how to make it?” 

“Just add water and shake yes?” Lucifer confirmed. 

“Yeah. You’ll need to heat it up too if possible. Will it be possible out there?” 

“For me, yes,” Lucifer told her. “I’m a fire element.”

“Okay. Good. Just make sure it’s not too hot. And he’ll need a bottle every three hours give or take. And make sure you burp him after every ounce…” Linda kept explaining.

Maze cut her off and handed Lucifer the baby care book. “I’m sorry, but we really don’t have time for everything,” Maze said apologetically. 

“Mazikeen is correct. We will be alright. You have my word,” he assured her, sliding the book into the diaper bag and shifting the sleeping baby so that he could put the bag over his shoulder. “Call Daniel please and let him know what’s going on and that I’ll be back in a few days?” 

Linda nodded as Maze said, “We’ll make sure he knows. Hurry.” Lucifer disappeared on the spot as Linda burst into sobs.


	23. Chapter 23

Linda was still trying to pull herself together to call Dan when her phone rang. Maze dove under the debris of the coffee table to get it for her and saw that it was Dan. “It’s Dan. Do you want me to…”

“No, I’ve got it,” Linda said with a sniffle reaching for the phone. It was her decision to explain. 

“Linda, are you okay?” Dan asked worriedly. “We were in an interrogation when Lucifer got the prayer and I got away as soon as I could.” 

“I-I’m okay. L-Lucifer won’t be home for a few days though. He wanted me to tell you,” she told him. 

“Why? What happened? Is /he/ okay?” Dan asked even more worried now. 

“He’s fine. A little banged up, but he said he was good and he wouldn’t have taken Charlie if he was worse off than he seemed.”

“Wait…he took Charlie?” Dan asked getting more confused with every minute. 

“Sorry. I’m all jumbled up right now. I’ll just start from the beginning.” 

“Please,” Dan replied, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. 

“Amenadiel showed up to take Charlie to heaven for good. That’s why I called Lucifer. They fought and when Maze got back and jumped in Amenadiel took off, but said he would be back. We couldn’t keep watch on him every minute forever and if he came back with help…I’m sorry, Dan. I know it’s something that you two should have discussed first, but…”

“What should we have discussed first?” Dan asked gently, realizing how serious this was and trying to get the story back on track. 

“Lucifer took Charlie to the Wytchwoods. He’s doing a blood adoption to make Charlie his instead of Amenadiel’s and bind him to this dimension too. It was the only way to keep him safe. I’m sorry,” Linda explained, feeling horrible about possibly driving a wedge between them with such a big decision. 

“Hey, it’s fine, Linda. Really. I understand,” Dan assured her. Yeah, in an ideal world they would discuss Lucifer adopting a son before it happened, but this was far from an ideal situation and he held no fault with anyone for it. 

“I don’t want this to cause problems with you two.”

“It won’t,” Dan said earnestly. “If I were in his position, I would have done the same, and I definitely understand the need to move fast before God can get involved.”

“Thank you, Dan,” Linda said relieved. 

“Do you want me to keep you updated on his emotions while he’s gone? Since I know he’ll be out of contact, that way at least you’ll know that they’re okay.”

“Oh, Dan that would be wonderful. Would you please?” Linda asked desperately. If that was the only link she could have with him while they were gone then she would take it gladly. 

“Of course,” Dan assured her. “Right now he’s a little bit confused, but calm. Maybe he’s trying to figure out the diapers?” Dan said partially joking. 

Linda let out a little chuckle at that, which had been Dan’s intention. “We didn’t exactly have time for a full tutorial,” she admitted. 

“You know he’ll figure it out,” Dan assured her. “He’s a smart guy and he’ll protect that baby with his life.” 

“I know. Thank you, Dan,” Linda said with a smile, feeling much better now that she had that connection, little though it was. 

“You’re welcome. I need to go now, but I’ll check back in when I can and give you an update, and I’ll call you right away if I get any bad vibes okay?” 

“Okay. I appreciate it,” she told him as she hung up. 

Dan took a few deep breaths before heading to the lieutenant’s office. He knocked on the door and waited to be waved in. “I needed to let you know there was another ‘celestial emergency’. Lucifer will be away for a few days.”

“Anything I need to know about?” she asked. 

“Not unless you have a way to arrest an angel for attempted kidnapping,” Dan snorted, wanting to give her some information at least since she was being so understanding about it. 

“Unfortunately that might be a little beyond the department. If he needs help though, I’ll do anything I can.”

“He’s good for now. Just had to take the baby to the blind spot and once he’s done there it should stop any future attempts. Thanks though.” 

“Of course. He’s one of us. Even if his issues are usually bigger than we can handle, we still do what we can to take care of our own,” she told him. Dan grinned and nodded at her. “Do you need time off for this?” she asked, hoping the answer was no. They were pretty backed up at the moment. 

“No, I’m good. There’s nothing I can do from here. I’ll need to make a few more phone calls than normal though to keep the baby’s mother updated on his moods for her peace of mind.”

“That’s fine. Under the circumstances I’ll overlook it,” she assured him. “Thank you for letting me know.” Dan knew a dismissal when he heard one so he went back to work. 

Lucifer landed in the same spot that he and Dan had completed their bond and waffled for a moment on whether to start the ritual first or wait to feed and change the baby before he decided that since Charlie was still sleeping right now, he might as well start the ritual. He took off Charlie’s clothes, but left the diaper. It would still be enough contact with his wings. This one didn’t require full body contact like the soulbonding. 

He unfurled his wings and set Charlie carefully in one of them, making sure that he was secure before letting go. He grabbed his blade and cut the tip of his finger, using another one to pull Charlie’s lips open and dripped seven drops of blood in his mouth before using the same finger to draw his sigil in blood over Charlie’s heart. “Pueri mei et pueri mei sanguinem domus,” he whispered and felt the cut on his finger heal over, signifying that it took. 

Charlie took that opportunity to wake up and start crying so Lucifer grabbed the bag, keeping the baby cradled in his wing so both hands were free and grabbed the can of formula and one of the bottles. He took a moment to read the instructions before heading to the stream to get the water, glad that there were markings on the bottle to tell him how much he needed. Linda hadn’t mentioned how much to feed him, but thankfully there was a chart on the formula canister so he didn’t waste too much and only made two ounces. He used his wing to hold the baby against his chest securely as he leaned down to get the water. He heated the bottle quickly and tested to make sure that it wasn’t too hot before giving it to him. 

While Charlie was drinking the bottle, Lucifer used his free hand to pull out the book and started skimming through. This was one of those times he was glad for the angelic reading speed. He didn’t usually read that fast, preferring to savor it, but it was nice to be able to when necessary like this. He had the book memorized by the time he needed to burp the baby for the first time. He was confused for a few minutes on how he was going to do that without losing the contact with his wing, and mentally went through the different burping positions before figuring out one that might work. He gently rolled Charlie over so that he was on his stomach and started patting his back, wincing when he felt the liquid come from the baby’s mouth and drip over his feathers as the burp came. That would be a nightmare to clean off. No matter though. 

He was just putting the bottle back in Charlie’s mouth when he felt a burst of love and acceptance from Dan and he smiled and sent the same back. Apparently, he got the message and was good with it. Charlie didn’t finish the entire bottle before turning away from it and crying again, so Lucifer assumed he was done. The book had said he may not take the entire two ounces, so he wasn’t worried. He’d had most of it at least. He rolled him again to burp him, sighing heavily when it was accompanied by more spit-up. He decided to change the diaper before bothering trying to clean the wing though. Might as well get it all at once. 

He fumbled with the diapers for a long moment before figuring out how they worked. Of course they couldn’t come with easy instructions like the formula. Thankfully he remembered the tip in the book for changing a boy’s diaper and was quick enough with the new one to avoid getting sprayed. Unfortunately, his haste meant that he ended up smearing some of the worse part on his normally pristine white wing. Waiting to clean it had been a good call. He shifted Charlie out of the mess before cleaning him up and putting the new diaper the rest of the way on and then shifted him again to the other wing, careful not to lose contact. 

Lucifer headed over to the stream again, bracing himself for the discomfort before sticking his wing in the running water and sloshing it around until he could feel all of the mess wash away and then he quickly yanked it out with a shudder. While most of his body was immune to the cold, his wings were not and water was even worse. Cold water was just horrendous. It was better than the mess that was on them before though. He slid his jacket off and dried the worst of the water from the wing, but it would take a while to finish drying. Hopefully it would be dry by the time the next feeding came around and he had to wash the other one. Little did he know that Dan was currently chuckling at the frazzled frustration he could feel from his bonded. He had no way of knowing why Dan was so amused.


	24. Chapter 24

Lucifer quickly picked up the pattern of Dan’s amusement and sent the emotional equivalent of a raspberry, chuckling at the sharp spike in the amusement, the interaction of the mate that he sorely missed even after one day distracting him from the discomfort of his once again cold wet wing. Honestly, could the child ever keep anything inside him? If it wasn’t the spit up or the defecation it was the drool. He came to the conclusion rather quickly that the adorableness of infants was a survival technique to keep their caregivers from giving them away at the first opportunity. Despite the annoyance, he couldn’t help but love the little thing with his whole heart. Even before this mess started. The more the paternal bond took hold the more intense it got. 

Lucifer could already see the child morphing more towards his features than his brother’s. The skin was starting to lighten and his hair was becoming thinner. He was relatively certain that his legs were slightly longer than they were yesterday as well. It was almost disconcerting to watch the changes, but he was still transfixed. Lucifer was glad that he needed less sleep than humans because he barely managed to get his three hours a night before the child woke him again. How did human parents manage? One thing he was definitely not thankful for was his better than human senses. Particularly his sense of smell. 

When he woke up on the third day, he kept a close watch on the sigil on Charlie’s chest. Once that completely sunk into the skin, the adoption would be complete. He doubted it would be before late this evening though given the time he started it. The sun had set three hours before the sigil disappeared and only the glow from his wings and the full moon had allowed him to see it disappear, so he quickly packed the bag back up, and transported back to return the child to his mother. It was midday in LA when he returned and no sooner than he appeared was Linda on her feet and rushing towards him with a cry of, “Charlie!” She stopped short at the sight of him though and looked at Lucifer confused. 

“I assure you, Linda. It’s him. I’ve simply replaced Amenadiel’s DNA with my own so he looks different.” 

She let out a heavy breath and nodded, reaching for the baby that Lucifer gladly let her take. She had expected the changes, but the sight of them still caught her off guard. “That’s going to take some getting used to,” she said with a bright smile as she rocked him, not taking her eyes off of him. “How was he?” 

“He was…normal, from what I read,” Lucifer said with a chuckle. “He last ate roughly an hour ago and was changed at the same time.”

“Thank you, Lucifer. So much,” she said with tears in her eyes, reaching out and taking his hand, giving it a squeeze. 

“You’re very welcome,” Lucifer said with a smile. 

“I know that I have no right to ask more of you after this, and I’m sorry, but he is part angel, and there will be so much that I don’t understand or know what to do with…” 

Lucifer frowned and pulled her to the couch to sit down. “Linda, he is my son too now. Of course I will be here for him and for you.”

Linda sucked in a sharp breath. She hadn’t dreamed that he would want to go so far with this. She should have expected it though, knowing him. He talked often enough about his father’s abandonment and he would never want to do the same. That also brought up a fear in her though. She knew that it was irrational. This was Lucifer after all, but after everything she went through with Amenadiel, she couldn’t help it. She did her best to keep the fear from her voice though as she asked, “What kind of custody arrangement are you wanting?” 

Lucifer smiled as he reached out to trail a finger over his son’s cheek before answering. “I don’t see the need to set anything in stone right now. You are his mother and he should remain primarily with you. I just ask that you allow me to be a part of his life within reason. We can discuss visits and such as they come up and you feel free to call me anytime you need a break for a few days or even a babysitter for a few hours. Is that okay with you?” 

Linda smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder for a moment. “Yeah. I’m good with that. Just don’t expect me to give him up again for at least a few weeks,” she chuckled. 

“Of course not. You’ve been through a lot and you want to keep him close. It’s perfectly understandable,” Lucifer assured her. “Do you mind if I come by here and see him in the meantime though?” 

“Not at all. You are always welcome anytime,” she said earnestly. “You’ll be a good Dad, Lucifer,” she said softly, knowing his fears on that subject well and she could see the apprehension in his eyes with the subject. 

“I hope so,” he breathed out. 

“I don’t doubt it for a moment and you know why?” 

“Why?” Lucifer asked hopefully, meeting her eyes. 

“Because you already have the most important part. Even before he was yours. You love him. From there everything else just falls into place.” 

“I don’t want to mess him up like…”

“Like your father messed you up,” Linda finished when it was clear that he couldn’t. “You won’t. You’ll make mistakes, sure. So will I. Every parent does. But you could never be your father, Lucifer. You don’t have it in you.”

Lucifer smiled and relaxed a great deal. “Thank you, Linda. I will do my best to live up to the faith you have in me.” He checked his watch and noticed that Dan would still be at work for another two hours so he had a little more time to stay. “Is Amenadiel on his birth certificate already?” 

“No. He wasn’t there so he couldn’t have been added even if I wanted to. His father is blank.” 

“I don’t need an answer now, but would you consider adding me as the father? And perhaps even making him a Morningstar?” Lucifer asked. 

“I can give you answer on the first now. I’m perfectly fine with adding you as his father. Making him a Morningstar, I can say probably, but I’d like to think it over for a bit before I decide for sure,” Linda told him. 

“I understand. Once his name is set, I’ll be setting up a trust fund for him and I’ll schedule child support transactions this afternoon,” he told her. 

“Lucifer you don’t have to do that,” she said gently. “I have more than enough money to take care of us and you took on this responsibility willingly to save us. Just being there as his Dad is enough.” 

“Not for me it isn’t,” Lucifer said firmly. “Please, Linda. Let me do this. Let me take care of my son in every way I can.”

Linda sighed and nodded, leaning against his side companionably. She could tell how much he needed this, so how could she say no. “Alright. The trust fund is in your hands, but the child support can’t be too much.” 

“I was thinking five thousand a month,” Lucifer said. 

“No. No way,” she shook her head sharply. “Average child support payments are around six hundred a month.” She knew that Lucifer had very little idea of the value of money for the average person which was why she felt the need to put a cap on it to begin with. 

“Well we are far from average and I already have far more money than I could ever spend on my own so let’s double the average then?” he asked hopefully. 

Linda sighed again. “I can live with that,” she said reluctantly. She still thought it was too much, but she got Lucifer’s point. It wouldn’t even make a dent for him but allowed him to feel like he was taking better care of his son. She knew that he would never put money and stuff over time and affection though. He would shower his son with all of it. That was just who he was. 

“Then I’ll make the arrangements,” Lucifer agreed as he turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. 

“Lucifer! You’re back,” Maze said, still towel drying her hair as she came over to look over Linda’s shoulder at the baby, smiling at the changes. “How’d it go?” 

“It was fine,” Lucifer told her. “He was perfectly normal for an infant from what I gathered from the book.” 

“How many times did you get peed on?” she asked with a smirk. 

“None actually. I was prepared for that. The spit-up, feces, and drool were a different story however,” he said scrunching up his nose in remembrance. 

Maze laughed. “And on your wings too,” she shook her head in amused sympathy, knowing how the ritual worked. 

“Yes, that was highly unpleasant,” Lucifer admitted. “I should get going though. I have a few stops to make before Daniel gets home from work. I’ll come by in a few days?” 

“Anytime, Lucifer. I meant it when I said you’re always welcome,” Linda said again, shifting Charlie so that she could give Lucifer a hug, which he actually returned for once. She was the mother of his son after all.


	25. Chapter 25

Amenadiel walked into the throne room as summoned and knelt before his father, not missing the fact that so many of his other siblings were gathered. He had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to be joining the spectators though. “Rise Amenadiel.” He stood. “I have come to a decision on the new king of Hell.”

“Father, please…” he started to beg, knowing that he meant him. Why else wouldn’t he be with his brothers and sisters?

“Silence!” God cut him off. “It was your deal that prevented us from forcing Lucifer back to Hell. It was your advice that he would go back on his own eventually. It was your blindness that didn’t see what he was planning despite you staying on Earth for the exact reason as to keep an eye on him. Then, when I do figure out what he’s planning, it’s your carelessness that saw him warned and the bond completed anyway, making him unable to ever return. Tell me, Amenadiel. Which of your siblings should I punish for your mistakes?” 

“But my son…”

“Is no longer yours,” God snapped. “Once again you underestimated your brother. He has taken the child for his own in every way. Now, not only is he bound to the Earthly plane, but there is a celestial child bound there as well! You have no child to raise and no excuse to avoid your rightful punishment. Azrael!” 

“Yes father,” she stepped forward. 

“Deposit Amenadiel in Hell before returning to your duties.”

“Yes Father,” she said again with a bow, grabbing Amenadiel’s arm and flying away with him. 

Lucifer got home a bit before Dan, and was immediately attacked by a happy child. “Daddy! You’re home! I missed you!” 

Lucifer chuckled and hugged her back. “Yes. I’m home child.” He nodded at the babysitter who got up to leave since he was home and turned his attention back to Trixie. “Did your father tell you why I was gone?”

“Just that you had to go protect Charlie for a little while. He said you would tell me more when you got home.” 

Lucifer nodded and headed to the couch. “Amenadiel tried to take Charlie away to live in heaven and never see his family here again, so I made him my son instead so he could stay here.”

“So he’s my brother now?” she asked excitedly. 

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Lucifer told her. 

“Awesome! Will he be living here then?” 

“He will be living with his mother, but he will likely visit here often,” Lucifer told her. “I plan to turn Maze’s old room into a nursery.”

“Can I help?” 

“If you wish, then you are welcome to.” 

Dan came in the door at that moment and Trixie bounced up and ran over. “Daddy! Guess what! I have a brother now! And Daddy Luc said that I can help get the nursery set up and everything for when he visits!” 

Dan laughed and hugged her tightly as his eyes lit on Lucifer. “That’s great, baby,” he said as she let him go and he grabbed Lucifer in a searing kiss. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed him in just three days. 

Trixie giggled. “I’ll go play in my room.” 

Dan broke the kiss, but kept his arms wrapped around his bonded. “That’s okay, Trix. Why don’t we order dinner and we can all watch a movie or two?” he suggested. He didn’t want to make his child disappear so he could have sex and he would be just as happy to cuddle on the couch. He could feel the warmth from Lucifer at that statement that said that he agreed as well. 

“Okay,” she said happily. She would rather that anyway. 

Lucifer pulled out his phone to place an order for Chinese as he sat on the couch and soon found himself bracketed by two people leaning against him. He smiled brightly and wrapped an arm around each of them as Dan took the remote to find a movie. Once Trixie was in bed later, Lucifer and Dan went upstairs and stayed wrapped up with each other until the early hours of the morning. 

Two days later, on Saturday, Lucifer was eating lunch when he was startled by a visitor. “Hey Lu. Sorry it’s been so long between visits. Things have been hectic.”

“Yes, I can imagine, what with father sending people to destroy my life,” he said suspiciously. 

“Okay, look. I had nothing to do with any of that, and didn’t know anything about it until an assembly a few days ago. I figured out that you were looking for a human mate years ago and never said a word. If I had known that Dad found out I would have warned you,” Azrael told him. 

Lucifer sighed with relief and nodded. He had hoped that Azrael was still on his side, and was glad to see that he was right. “You mentioned an assembly?” 

“Yeah. Dad installed a new king of Hell and then sealed it up so he can never leave and this situation couldn’t be repeated,” she told him. 

“Oh? And who is the unlucky soul?” 

“Amenadiel,” she told him. “Dad said that it was his fault you could never go back so he had to take your place.” 

Lucifer shook his head sadly. “If everything hadn’t happened, I would have saved him from it.”

“I know. And I told him the same thing,” Azrael said with a smirk. “I told him that if he had stayed by your side and supported you that you would have stopped at nothing to keep him out of Hell, but he chose the wrong side.”

“And what side are you on, Azrael?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“I’m the angel of death, Lu. I’m supposed to be neutral. So far no one has asked me to choose a side, and I like it that way.” 

“And if you were forced to choose?” 

“Then I would choose you of course, doofus,” she chuckled and bumped his shoulder. It was no contest. Not only was he her favorite brother, but he would always do everything in his power to take care of those who were loyal to him. Even if he failed it was more than their father would do. “Now. Can I meet your son?” 

“You know about that too?” Lucifer asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“It was mentioned,” she said with a grin. “Dad’s not happy but there’s nothing he can do about it now is there?” 

“No. There isn’t. That was rather the point,” Lucifer chuckled. “I was going to head to see him now if you’d like to join me.” Dan had taken Trixie to a birthday today, so it was just Lucifer. Azrael immediately agreed so Lucifer shifted to Linda’s doorstep and waited for Azrael to join him a few seconds later before he knocked. 

“Lucifer!” Linda said cheerfully as she answered the door before noticing the second person and looking at her curiously. 

“Linda, this is my sister Azrael,” he introduced her. “She wanted to meet Charlie, if that’s okay.”

“Azrael…the angel of death? He’s not…”

“No, no, no,” Lucifer quickly assured her, having forgotten that he’d mentioned Azrael to her before. “If she were here for that I could certainly not be kindly introducing her.” 

“I’d be lucky to survive if I was here for that,” Azrael said with a chuckle. “No, I just wanted to meet my nephew is all. I have no intention of trying to take him away by any means.” 

“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” Linda said relieved as she opened the door the rest of the way in invitation. “I’m sorry, Lucifer. I know that you would never let anything happen to him. It’s just after everything…”

“There is no need for apologies,” he waved her off. “I completely understand. Azrael often gets that reaction from those who know her role.”

“Makes parties a bit difficult,” Azrael joked.

“Unless you enjoy mass panic of course,” Lucifer laughed as Linda walked over with the baby and Lucifer took him gently. “Azrael, meet Charlie Lucas last name to be determined.” 

“About that,” Linda piped up. “I would be glad to have him be a Morningstar.” 

Lucifer grinned. “Charlie Lucas Morningstar it is then. We can go Monday and get everything settled?” Linda nodded. 

“Ooooh he is so cute!” Azrael cooed. “May I hold him?” 

Lucifer looked to Linda for permission and she nodded so Lucifer placed him in Azrael’s arms. While Azrael was fawning over him, Linda pulled Lucifer to the side. “I’m okay with you making those kinds of decisions. He’s your son too. If you want to let someone hold him, that’s your right.” 

Lucifer smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Linda.” 

“We’ll figure this whole co-parenting thing out,” she assured him. “It’ll just take time and communication.” 

“I can see that. In the interest of communication, I am in the process of outfitting Maze’s old room at the apartment into a nursery for when he visits. Do you have any requests?” 

“Other than making sure that everything is safe, which I know you’d do anyway, I leave it in your hands. I would rather he not get into the habit of a pacifier though.” 

“I completely agree with you there,” Lucifer nodded as they moved back over towards Azrael and the baby.


	26. Chapter 26

Azrael didn’t stay very long. She couldn’t take too long away from work or the souls would start to pile up after all, so she handed the baby back to Lucifer and gave him a hug before taking off. It was only minutes after she left that Charlie woke up and started crying. “Would you like to feed him?” Linda asked as she got the bottle ready. 

“Yes, please,” Lucifer said with a smile, bouncing him slightly to keep him calmer, having learned during their three days together that he liked that. “And I can stay for a while if you’d like to take a nap. You look exhausted. Is Mazikeen not helping?”

“She barely lets me help,” Maze said as she came in, having been avoiding Azrael. Other than Lucifer, she wasn’t comfortable around angels at all. Lucifer raised an eyebrow at Linda in question. 

“I do let her help. I just…like doing most of it myself,” Linda said sheepishly. 

“I understand,” Lucifer told her. “But you need to take care of yourself as well.”

Linda knew he was right. She was just still so on edge after everything that happened and then being away from him for three days right after. “Okay. I’ll go take a nap,” she agreed. And she would try to let Maze help more. 

“And remember that, like me, Maze doesn’t need as much sleep as humans,” Lucifer reminded her and she nodded as she headed upstairs. 

“Thanks for that,” Maze said once she was gone. “I’ve been trying, but she’s stubborn.”

“I know,” Lucifer chuckled. He wasn’t going to mention that Maze didn’t exactly have the right kind of social skills to get the right result though. While he would likely be safe as long as he was holding his son, he couldn’t use the child for a shield forever. 

“You’re better at that than I expected,” Maze said as he burped the baby halfway through the bottle. 

“Three days alone in the wilderness with no choice but to figure it out helps,” Lucifer laughed. “At least I don’t have to worry about my wings now.” 

“That’s a plus, I’m sure,” Maze said amusedly. She knew how sensitive his wings were. 

Lucifer didn’t let Maze help much that afternoon either, but that was more because he knew that his time with his son was limited. Maze got to live here. He didn’t. It was a few days before Linda was willing to let Charlie out of the house without her, though not overnight. Lucifer got to take him out for an afternoon though. He was quickly at a loss as to what to do though. Babies didn’t actually do anything. He ended up taking him by the precinct to show him off a bit and everyone was beyond taken with him, especially Ella. 

“Oooh. He’s so cute,” she cooed. “Can I hold him?” Lucifer smiled and handed him over as most of the other people nearby tried to get a good look at him too. “Does he have wings too?”

“Not yet,” Lucifer told her, not worried about anyone overhearing anymore. “They won’t come in until he’s around three at which point we’ll need to keep him out of public until he learns to control them.” 

“So he’ll be able to fly then? Are you looking forward to teaching him?” Davis asked with a grin, remembering how much fun it had been to teach his kid to ride a bike and flying must be even more fun. 

“They won’t be grown in enough to fly until he’s around four, but yes. I’m very much looking forward to teaching him to fly.”

Once he had the baby back, he stopped by Dan’s desk for a little while, interrupting his paperwork, not that Dan minded in the slightest. He and Trixie had gone with Lucifer to Linda’s a couple times and he loved that baby almost as much as Lucifer did. 

It was still a few weeks before Linda let Lucifer take him overnight and they got to use the new nursery for the weekend. He was almost a year old before Linda would let him out of her sight for longer than that though and he started spending one week a month with Lucifer and Dan. Trixie loved her little brother to death and was always carrying him around even as he learned to toddle on his own. Once his wings started coming in, Lucifer taught Linda how to groom them daily. It only took a few months before he was able to control them enough to go out in public again, which was a good thing, since he was feeling more than a little cooped up and acting out because of it. 

The first big disagreement between Lucifer and Linda happened when Charlie was six and Linda mentioned that he was going through a bit of a bullying phase, and Lucifer was very much not happy. “It’s just a phase, Lucifer. He’s a boy. It happens. I’ve been talking with him about it.”

Lucifer shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Linda. Not for him.”

“I know that you hate bullying and all, and I do too, but he’s just a child…”

“No, he’s an angel, Linda. Being raised amongst humans,” Lucifer pointed out. “Perhaps a demonstration is in order. Charlie! Come here a moment!” 

“Yes, Dad?” Charlie asked, running into the room. 

“Do me a favor and hit this counter as hard as you can like you’re mad at it,” Lucifer told him. 

Charlie looked at him strangely but then shrugged and did as he asked causing the solid marble to break in half and crumble around where his fist hit. “Lucifer!” Linda cried, pulling Charlie’s hand to see if it was okay, but there wasn’t the slightest bruise. At seeing that she calmed down quite a bit and started seeing Lucifer’s point. 

“Thank you Charlie, now come sit with me for a minute,” Lucifer said before turning to Linda, “I’ll have the counter fixed of course.” Once he and Charlie were sitting, Linda across from them to not only see how Lucifer handled this, but also interject on her own if needed now that she realized how serious this situation was. “I understand you’ve been bullying other children.”

“Just the ones who deserve it,” Charlie muttered, somehow knowing that this was not going to go as well as it went with his mother. 

“/No one/ deserves to be bullied, Charles,” Lucifer said sternly. “Morningstars are not bullies. Ever.” 

“They don’t want to admit that I’m better than them,” he protested and Linda gasped. She hadn’t realized where it was coming from, not having been able to get an answer from him on that before. Maybe since he knew that his father was an angel too, he felt more comfortable telling him that part. 

“Because you’re not,” Lucifer said bluntly. “You’re not better than anyone and neither am I. Yes, you have abilities they don’t, but that doesn’t make you more important than them. You don’t deserve special treatment for it. Living among humans means relating to them on their level.”

“Maybe I don’t want to live with humans then,” Charlie pouted and crossed his arms. 

“Then you would rather stay home all day and never see anyone else? Oh wait, your mother is human as well, so that wouldn’t work. You could come live with me, but then my bonded and your sister are human too, so that wouldn’t work either. I guess you’re just stuck all alone then,” Lucifer drawled. 

Charlie furrowed his brow trying to think his way around that one. “I don’t want to be alone,” he admitted sullenly after a while. 

“Then you better start behaving better. You saw what you did to that counter in there. What do you think would happen to a human if you hit them that hard?”

“They would die,” Charlie said softly, tears starting to well up in his eyes. 

“I don’t want to have to punish you, Charles. You know how I feel about those things, and perhaps this is partially my fault for letting you get away with so much, but I will not risk the well being of others either, so if you force my hand I will do what I must,” Lucifer told him. 

Charlie nodded miserably. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“And you will start with getting better friends. I’d be willing to change your school if that would be easier for you,” Lucifer offered, getting a frown from Linda at that, but she stayed out of it for now, wanting to hear Charlie’s answer. 

“No, I’ll be fine at my school,” he assured him. 

“Very well, but the option is still open if this isn’t resolved,” Lucifer said and Charlie nodded. “You may return to what you were doing.” 

Charlie was upstairs like a shot, and Linda took the opportunity to say, “That was well handled Lucifer. Good job. You’re not the only one that lets him get away with too much though.” She knew that she was guilty of the same thing. Raising an angel brought up different challenges and many of the normal human ones tended to get overlooked at times. 

“Still. I know how precarious his position is,” Lucifer pointed out. There was less excuse for him. 

“So do I. I just hadn’t considered this particular one that way. Feel free to continue pointing out when I’m overlooking something like that. I don’t like the idea of him changing schools over this though. It feels too much like running away from his problems.”

“I understand that, and see your point. My thinking on the matter is more that his current school obviously is not doing well enough at preventing bullying. Not to mention that separating him from his cohorts would make everyone safer.”

“Let’s leave him where he is for now and see how things go. If they don’t turn around soon, then we can talk about changing schools,” Linda agreed. When framing it as a safety matter, it changed things. It was still running away from his problems, but someone ending up seriously hurt otherwise would be even worse. 

“Agreed,” Lucifer said with a nod. “Now for what I originally came here for. I was considering a trip during my month with him this summer, and would like your permission.” Since Charlie had started school, Lucifer had been getting him one month a summer to make up for spending less time during the school year. 

“Where were you going to go?” Linda asked curiously. She wasn’t likely to say no either way, but wanted the information anyway. 

“I was trying to decide between Rio and Tokyo. Let him see a bit of the world,” Lucifer told her. “Beatrice has been studying Japanese culture quite a bit and would appreciate the trip to Tokyo, but Daniel has always wanted to see Rio.” 

Linda chuckled and nodded. “I’m good with it either way and I’ll sign off on him taking an international flight. But I expect regular phone calls,” she said mock-sternly with a smile. She’d never been that far away from him. Lucifer tended to take him on smaller trips around the country for a few days at a time, or even a week last summer, but this would be the first long trip. 

“You can count on it,” Lucifer chuckled as he got up to leave. “And I’ll let you know where we decide.”


	27. Chapter 27

They ended up going to Tokyo that summer. When talking it over with Dan, he pointed out that he had forever to see anywhere he wanted. Trixie was almost grown and would probably be traveling more on her own after that. Lucifer couldn’t disagree with that, so they spent a month that summer in Tokyo. Lucifer and Dan both nearly had heart attacks at sixteen year old Trixie going out alone in the foreign city, even with the limits they imposed, but they couldn’t really argue. She was old enough to be unaccompanied, at least during the day and she knew the culture and language better than any of them, save Lucifer. 

The next year, at Trixie’s request, they also went to Japan, in a different area this time. Since Charlie wasn’t old enough to have a preference and Lucifer and Dan had forever to see any part of the world they wanted, there was no argument on the matter. After the way she had been asserting her independence, Lucifer and Dan were both surprised when she didn’t move out after she turned eighteen, and decided to live at home during college. Not that she was /always/ home, of course, but it was still her primary residence. 

Due to both Ella and Linda’s influence, she wanted to go into medical research, though she did still train to fight with Maze. Due to everything that happened with her mother, she eschewed any type of law enforcement career. She wouldn’t admit it, but it was also partially because she didn’t want to end up being compared to her dads and even her aunt Maze who was almost legendary as a bounty hunter. She wanted to find her own path and none of the adults in her life disagreed with that. 

When Charlie was ten, tragedy struck. He and Linda were in a fatal car accident. Everyone said that it was a miracle he survived, but Linda didn’t. Lucifer got the prayer from her as the car was careening out of control, but she had died on impact. He was too late to save her. Charlie was inconsolable, and Lucifer wasn’t much better. He and Linda had gotten closer than ever in the raising of their son, though obviously there was never anything romantic between them. Lucifer would never love anyone but Dan in that way, but he loved her dearly in a familial way. 

Charlie came to stay with Dan, Lucifer, and Trixie while they handled the funeral arrangements. Everything she had was left to Charlie, with Lucifer as trustee until he was old enough. Since it was summer, there was no need to figure anything out urgently, but it did bring up a conversation with Lucifer, Dan, and the now twenty year old Trixie once Charlie was in bed one night. “I seem to remember when Beatrice was a child, not wanting to uproot her after a tragedy, and I have to wonder if the same would be best for Charlie now,” Lucifer brought up. 

Dan looked torn. Either way one of the kids would be uprooted, though Trixie was old enough to live on her own, by now. He could agree that Charlie was more important though. He was so young and had just lost his mother. At the same age that Trixie had lost hers even. How did he tell his daughter that she either had to move or live on her own though? “I know what you’re thinking, Dad,” Trixie said with a smile. “And I’ll be fine either way. Dad Luc is right. Charlie is more important.” 

“Should you wish to stay here, Beatrice, I will gladly put the apartment into your name,” Lucifer assured her, having bought the apartment outright years ago instead of simply renting it. “And your trust fund will easily take care of any other expenses, but you know that if you need more all you have to do is ask. However…I think I can speak for your father as well when I say that you will always have a home wherever we are should you wish it.” 

“Absolutely,” Dan agreed, liking that idea even more. “And I am very proud of you for being so willing to make changes for your brother’s sake.” 

“Of course. You know how much I love that little rugrat. I would like to suggest talking to him before deciding though. It may be that staying in Aunt Linda’s house might bring back too many memories,” Trixie told them. 

Dan frowned at that statement. “I didn’t think of that. Is that how you felt back then?” he asked worriedly. 

“Yes and no. I would have liked to have been consulted,” she told them. “But I probably would have chosen to stay here anyway. That was a different situation though. I know the apartment you were living in at the time sucked Dad,” she chuckled. 

“That’s the truth,” he said with a laugh. “And I’ll definitely keep that in mind and we’ll talk to Charlie before we decide.” He looked at Lucifer at the last statement for agreement which he got. 

“Yes. We will. I appreciate your insight,” Lucifer told her. He’d originally wanted her to be a part of the conversation because she was an adult and the decision would affect her as well, but was realizing that as someone who had been through something similar she was helpful in other ways as well. “Do you have any other suggestions?” 

“Don’t try to protect him too much from this. I do appreciate you doing that for me, Dad, but in some ways it just made it harder,” Trixie told them. Granted it was a different situation. Her mother was an attempted murderer and in a psychiatric institution probably for the rest of her life, but she still lost her just the same. 

Dan and Lucifer both nodded at her words, both taking her advice to heart and the next morning they talked to Charlie about where he wanted to live and he wanted to go home. Trixie decided to keep the apartment, but asked them not to put it in her name just yet. She might decide to move back with them if living on her own didn’t agree with her. It wasn’t as if they were going to charge her rent anyway. She moved into the master bedroom though and within a few months had two roommates from her classes. She wasn’t going to charge them rent, but her Dad advised her to so that she didn’t get in the habit of being taken advantage of. Even if it wasn’t much, she didn’t want to seem like a ticket for a free ride. 

Dan and Lucifer moved into Linda’s house, at least until Charlie grew up when it would become his house. It was hard for a while. There were a lot of memories of Linda around, but it did help them move on in the long run. Charlie didn’t have to lose his friends in the neighborhood, though the school wouldn’t have mattered since he’d been in private school his whole life. He could live anywhere for that. There was a bit of a change to routine as Lucifer had to get used to dropping him off and picking him up every day. Dan’s schedule was much less flexible. 

Maze continued living there, though she had gone back to bounty hunting when Charlie started school so she wasn’t around as much. The rare times when Lucifer got tied up at a crime scene and couldn’t get there in time, she was happy to pick Charlie up though and stay with him until Lucifer got back. While the lieutenant, still the same one from ten years ago, had agreed to keep their jobs open despite the lack of aging, when Charlie was thirteen, Dan retired from the department and Lucifer decided to be less of a detective and more of an actual consultant. He was called in to help with difficult suspects and used his connections to help out where needed, but didn’t go in every day and work every case. 

Lucifer continued running Lux, which got easier once their schedules lightened and he had more time to spend on it without worrying about neglecting his son, and while Dan helped for a while, he quickly realized that he didn’t like it much. He would much rather spend his time surfing. When he started feeling like a lay-a-bout for doing that, Lucifer quickly remedied that. “Darling, I run Lux because I truly enjoy it. Not for the money. I don’t even make much from the club.” Dan couldn’t argue with that. He poured almost everything the club made right back into it, from paying his employees exorbitant rates to upgrading everything at every chance. “We don’t need the money so you should spend your time doing what you enjoy. Eternity is a long time remember,” he joked. 

The family still took month long trips every summer, usually with Trixie as well since she still wanted to spend time with her family. By the time Charlie was eighteen they had been to every continent save Antarctica at least once. Trixie graduated from medical school at twenty six and thanks to Lucifer’s connections, had a job at a top tier research laboratory right after that. She was still starting at the bottom, but she was in the door and would quickly move up given her talent. Instead of the apartment, they had talked and Lucifer signed over his beach house to her since it was closer to the lab. Ella was ridiculously proud of her and they had become almost best friends. 

When Charlie was eighteen, Lucifer and Dan sat him down and signed over everything of Linda’s, including the house, and gave him access to the exorbitant trust fund set up by Lucifer. They told him that they would be happy to move back to the penthouse if he wanted the house to himself or they could stay if he would rather. Charlie might have made a different decision, but he knew how much Lucifer missed the penthouse, so he told them they could move back there, but made it clear that it wasn’t because he didn’t want them around. 

Dan and Lucifer still didn’t do a lot of traveling after that, save from the month per year that they took one or both of the kids along on whenever Trixie could get away. Charlie was in school, following in his mother’s footsteps of psychiatry, so he still had summers off at least. While Charlie would live forever, they were all aware that Trixie wouldn’t. Nor would Ella or any of their other friends, so they planned to stay close at least until they were all gone. They would have eternity to travel and see anything and everything in the world, but their time with their family was finite. 

Chloe had been the first to go, not that any of them had seen her in decades, but Trixie still got the notice. She had never made it out of the mental institution and had persisted in her belief that God would reward her for her faith. Unfortunately for her, God wasn’t the type to reward failure, so there was no intervention when her actions sent her to Hell where she reunited with Amenadiel. 

Ella was the next to pass on at the ripe old age of ninety four, which wasn’t surprising since she was twenty years older than Trixie. They all took it hard, but it was nothing compared to how they felt when Trixie went ten years later. Maze in particular was inconsolable after that one, and more than once wished she had a way to get back to Hell. Lucifer offered to have Azrael drop her off, but reminded her that it was probably different with Amenadiel in charge and that once she was there she would never be able to leave again thanks to God sealing it up. Azrael could only get in and out because she was the angel of death. Upon that realization, Maze changed her mind and decided to stay on Earth, but she did disappear for a long time after that. Doing some travelling and healing of her own. 

Once Trixie was gone, Lucifer shut Lux down, but kept the building and the penthouse. He didn’t want to give that up, but didn’t trust anyone else to run his club the way he wanted it, so the building went into mothballs as Lucifer and Dan travelled the world. Charlie joined them often, but did his own thing most of the time. He had given up his practice about ten years before Ella had passed. People had noticed him not aging and his license was going to be difficult to keep up for much longer too as he got too far past retirement age. That didn’t mean he stopped learning though and used his skills often. Just not in a professional capacity. 

By the time humans had their first settlement on Mars four hundred years later, Lucifer, Dan, and Charlie had seen every inch of Earth and what it had to offer, so easily decided to check out the red planet instead. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much there yet and they spent the next few thousand years going back and forth. By the time that Dan’s worry about this world coming to an end came to fruition when the sun began it’s transition to it’s next phase of life, humanity had branched out far enough among the stars for them to easily get a ride out and there was a lot of discussion about where exactly they would go. The only thing that was set in stone was that the three of them would be going to the same place. Beyond that, there was a whole universe to explore.


End file.
